Sisqo : Return Of Dragon

Pint-sized Lothario fails to seduce with second LP

So, girls! A guy comes up to you in a bar – and despite the fact he’s got more hair accessories than you, he’s a babe! He says, [I]”Call me Dragon”[/I], then leans forward and whispers, [I]”maybe we could do a little cha cha/We could do a lil’ ah ah”[/I].

Do you say: a) [I]”I wanna hold the Dragon”[/I],

b) [I]”Body like pow, make me want it right now”[/I], c) [I]”Come on, now dance with me”[/I],

or d) Laugh so hard that you’re hospitalised with a ruptured spleen and injuries to

your sanity?

Guess which three are the Sisqo-approved arts of seduction. If pop music was only about escapism, about existing, however briefly, in a heightened reality,

then Sisqo would be a genius. The ten tracks on his second album, the follow-up to the globally massive ‘Unleash The Dragon’, exist in that stylised world of Ramp;B courtship that would send any sentient real-life love object running for the cloisters. For as you’d expect, this record is largely an exercise in trying to see as many thongs as possible – and if he’s already used up his best chat-up line, that’s not going to stop him. On ‘Last Night’, he even finds himself seduced by a girl he dreams about ([I]”It’s a shame I don’t even know her name/But I know her measurements 36-24-36″[/I]). It’s the most realistic romance on the record.

From production so glossy that you could use it to reapply your lipstick to Sisqo’s tortuous way with words, there’s little here in the way of sex or sensuality. Away from the ballads, the pulse picks up a bit – particularly on the staccato fronting of the Teddy Riley-written ‘Can I Live’ and the lithe summer seduction of ‘Dance For Me’. The hilarious stalker-strut of ‘Homewrecker’ sees a, tch, wicked predatory female trying to break up Sisqo’s happy relationship, while ‘Close Your Eyes’ thinks that a sincere Latin strum makes up for repeated infidelity.

Yet mainly his endless straining for attitude and passion would have you screening your calls. He tries hard, bless him, but ultimately, though, the Dragon drags on, not so much ‘ah ah’ as ‘ha ha’.

Victoria Segal

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