Masterpiece Theatre (En Vogue album)

For the album by Marianas Trench, see Masterpiece Theatre (Marianas Trench album).
Masterpiece Theatre
Studio album by En Vogue
Released May 23, 2000
Recorded September 1999 - March 2000
Genre R&B
Label Elektra
Producer Denzil Foster, Thomas McElroy
En Vogue chronology

EV3
(1997)		 Masterpiece Theatre
(2000)		 The Gift of Christmas
(2002)
Singles from Masterpiece Theatre
  1. "Riddle"
    Released: March 22, 2000
  2. "Love U Crazay (Cancelled)"
    Released: 2000

Masterpiece Theatre is the fourth studio album by American R&B group En Vogue, released in 2000 on Elektra Records.

Development

The group took famous classical music ("masterpieces") and put their own R&B flavor on it. The album's title was originally set to be Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Cool.

Singles

The first single release was "Riddle", in a remixed form for radio by Stargate. "Riddle" was set to be followed by a mini-film containing the En Vogue Love Suite ("Love U Crazay", "Sad But True", "Love Won't Take Me Out", "Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Será. Será))" but plans fell through. Plans for the second single "Love U Crazay" were scrapped after the weak commercial performance of the project, sales stand at 174,000 copies of the album sold in the US to date.

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
Allmusic link
Entertainment Weekly (C) link
Los Angeles Times link
NME (7/10) link
Q link
Robert Christgau link
Rolling Stone link
Spin (6/10) link
Yahoo! Music (favorable) link

Track listing

All songs written by Denzil Foster, Thomas Elroy, Terry Ellis, Cynthia Herron and Maxine Jones, except where noted.

  1. "Riddle" 5:09
  2. "No, No, No (Can't Come Back)" (Raymond Ransom) 3:09
  3. "Falling in Love" (Denzil Foster, Thomas Elroy, Terry Ellis, Cynthia Herron, Maxine Jones, Joseph Sample) 4:08
  4. "Suite (Intro)" (feat. Russell Gatewood) (Russell Gatewood) 0:26
  5. "Love U Crazay" (feat. Kamil Marzette) (Michael Mani) 4:19
  6. "Sad But True" 4:08
  7. "Love Won't Take Me Out" (Michael Mani) 4:59
  8. "Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)" (Denzil Foster, Thomas Elroy, Terry Ellis, Cynthia Herron, Maxine Jones, Jacob Levison, Raymond Evans) 4:43
  9. "Suite (Outro)" (feat. Russell Gatewood) (Russell Gatewood) 0:05
  10. "Beat of Love" 4:13
  11. "Latin Soul" 4:32
  12. "Work It Out" 4:27
  13. "Those Dogs" (feat. Bobby McFerrin & Eklypse) (Denzil Foster, Thomas Elroy, Terry Ellis, Cynthia Herron, Maxine Jones, Bobby McFerrin) 4:09
  14. "Number One Man" 4:39

Samples

Tough the group took famous classical music ("masterpieces") and put their own R&B flavor on it, the album features a lot of samples. The En Vogue Love Suite ("Love U Crazay", "Sad But True", "Love Won't Take Me Out", "Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Será. Será))", presented by Russell Gatewood, most features classical samples.

Left overs

The album was originally set to include a track called "I Love You More", also in a remixed form, which were leaked on the initial advance version of the album. However, due to uncleared sample of "The Godfather" theme, the two versions of the songs were replaced by the addition of "Love U Crazay". Another song, "It's On", was also on the album sampler, but was removed from the final album for unknown reasons.

Charts

Country Chart Peak position
US Billboard 200 67
US R&B Billboard R&B 33
UK UK Album Chart 139
Germany Media Control Charts 22
Netherlands MegaCharts 56
Austria Austria Top 40 28
Ireland Irish Album Chart 150

External links