Back to Love | 3BOPS

1. Chris Brown, “Back to Love”

💿 Indigo • 🏷 RCA • 📅 2019

Once more, 🎙 Chris Brown seemed to be ‘feeling himself’ just a little bit too much.  After releasing the excessively long 💿 Heartbreak on a Full Moon, the 🏆 Grammy-winning R&B singer felt he needed to drop yet another overstuffed album with 💿 Indigo in 2019.  Thank goodness Indigo wasn’t three hours long, but it still exceeds two hours.  🎵 “Back to Love” is arguably the crowning achievement – one of the more thoughtful records. 

“But I’ll keep running with my best foot forward / ‘Cause the race to love is never over / I wanna be better for ya / You made me genuinely better.” The fact that Brown has a thoughtful song sounds almost uncharacteristic of the ‘bad boy.’  It’s a sleekly produced contemporary R&B joint that features strong vocals.  Hate him or love him, it’s hard to deny the pureness of his instrument, even with effects piled on.  The crème de la crème of “Back to Love” is the chorus and subsequent post-chorus.

Also Appears On 🔽:

🔗 🎧 Alluring Songs Where the Keyword is Back, Vol. 1

2. Bilal, “Back to Love”

💿 A Love Surreal • 🏷 Entertainment One Music • 📅 2013

On 🎵 “Back to Love,” 🎙 Bilal is “Tired of all these wars, dwelling in the past / Searching for the honesty and all that jazz.” Okay, so what does the 🏆 Grammy-winning R&B suggest we do as a society? Well, his answer comes in the form of a question on the chorus of this standout from his 2013 album, 💿 A Love Surreal: “How do we get back to love? Back to love, back to love…”

The theme of a royally screwed up world that’s totally out of order and needs to return to simpler, more meaningful things is nothing new. This sermon has been preached many times over the years.  Nonetheless, it still comes off incredibly successfully in the hands of Bilal. Sweetening the deal is excellent production work featuring jazz and soul cues (Bilal, 🎛 Steve Mckie, 🎛 Conley “Tone” Whitfield, 🎛 Mike Severson, and 🎛 Corey Bernhard) and primarily, elite vocals by the artist himself.

3. Anthony Hamilton, “Back to Love”

💿 Back to Love • 🏷 RCA • 📅 2011

🎙 Anthony Hamilton is the man, period.  Incredibly underrated, he’s synonymous with contemporary southern soul.  In 2011, he unleashed another fine addition to his discography, 💿 Back to Love.  Fitting, 🎵 “Back to Love” commences the affair soulfully to the nth degree. The production by 🎛 Salaam Remi is elite – always the case with this gifted producer.  Some of the awesome musical touches include the use of flute and horns, recreating the sound of the 70s, while also incorporating a dash of jazz.

The sound is key, but the 🏆 Grammy-winning singer/songwriter does pretty well in his own right.  As the years have progressed, he’s spoiled us with his falsetto more and more – one of so many tools in his arsenal. It’s been his full-bodied, unapologetically gritty southern vocal that have been his calling card but hearing a bit more upper register crooning from Anthony is a welcome departure.  Throw in matters of the heart (“I want you to want me… / I want us to fall in love again…”), and things are absolutely, utterly sweet.