Third album by the Canadian singer, here also with serpentwithfeet, Ty Dolla $ign and Omar Apollo
Reviewed Apr 11, 2023 by
Michael Boroni
Although Daniel Caesar’s career was relatively short, the Toronto-based singer has already won a Grammy and was part of one of the biggest hit singles in contemporary pop history (“Peaches” with Justin Bieber and Giveon).
“NEVER ENOUGH” is his third album following four years “CASE STUDY 01” which arrived after the lightning debut of “Freudian” in 2017. In this album, in addition to being the co-author of the songs, Caesar also appears as producer.
A normalized genre
There was a time in the late 10s when American r&b ran like a train. From Frank Ocean to Beyoncé, from James Blake to Blood Orange, each disc represented an evolution of the genre, contaminated by a thousand other influences. So in the end, even in a wider pop panorama, r&b mixed with hip-hop, electronics, dance, pop and soft rock, was the most innovative and interesting genre of the moment
Then evidently this phase has slowed down – and it is no coincidence that characters like the aforementioned Frank Ocean, Beyoncé or Blood Orange have considerably reduced their productions: the genre has therefore somewhat lost its propulsive and revolutionary force of recent years, and artists “limit” themselves (so to speak) to producing only good records and hits.
.
“Never Enough” by Daniel Caesar arises in this context. It is an excellent collection of 15 emo-soul songs, an intimate r&b in which Caesar talks about love, loss and faith, as in the previous albums, from which several well-deserved hit singles will be extracted in addition to the three that preceded the disc output. However, the impression is that, despite Caesar trying here and there to change direction, “Never enough” is an excellent but “normalized” r&b album, without that revolutionary and surprising character that was breathed only a few years ago when listening to a r&b record. If we listen to Frank Ocean’s “Blond” or Blood Orange’s “Negro Swan”, they sound like records from the future.
Songs
Do not misunderstand me. Daniel Caesar is an excellent author and interpreter (now also a producer) and inside this “Never Enough” there are excellent songs that are very willing to listen. “Ocho rios” is a beautiful opener that transitions from falsetto to lower registers with the song erupting into a rock ballad; “Always” and “Toronto 2014” (with Mustafa) have the same melodic touch as “Best part”, the song that together with HER won him the Grammy Award in 2019; “Disilllused” featuring Serpentwithfeet is a groovy track that takes Caesar in a new direction. Not to mention the three singles – “Do You Like Me?”, “Let Me Go” and “Valentina” – that we have already had the opportunity to enjoy in recent months.
In short, Caesar is good but perhaps, to paraphrase the title of his work, it is still not enough to build his great record.