Change for the worse on Legend's latest effort

His second album also lived up to its name: "Once Again" was a retread of the singer's debut, almost song for song. That didn't mean it was bad, but it was more of the same: refined piano ballads, stately melodies and quite a bit of sentimentality thrown in for good measure. On his latest album, however, he's made a clean break from his past. "Evolver," as its title smartly suggests, sees Legend moving in a new direction, filing away his Stevie Wonder and Elton John records, getting up from his piano stool and throwing himself onto the dance floor.

The video for the album's first single, "Green Light," sums up the move brilliantly. At the start of the video, we see Legend in the corner of a crowded party, hunched over a piano, belting out his ubiquitous 2002 ballad "Ordinary People." He's a has-been: His sleeves are rolled up, his eyes are closed, and no one's listening to him. This is the Legend whom we might be seeing if his third album were called "And Yet Again" or "Let's Recreate My Debut One More Time." But then, just when you least expect it, Legend slams down the piano lid and stands up defiantly. Everyone looks shocked, and just as the silence is starting to get awkward, the skittering synth beats kick in, and the infectious electro-pop single gets going.

"Green Light" is a terrific song, with a witty guest spot and insidiously catchy chorus courtesy of Andre 3000. Come to think of it, in terms of its sheer infectious optimism, it comes close to that man's own "Hey Ya," which is high praise indeed. Sadly, the rest of "Evolver" isn't quite so convincing. With only two piano-based songs, it's actually too radical a shift for Legend, who seems somewhat lost amid the fancy, hyper-commercial production. To be honest, most of the beats on the album - from the growling, grinding synths of "Satisfaction" to the swirling, candy-coated "Good Morning" - seem designed more for the likes of Usher or Chris Brown, fluffy teen popsters in an entirely different league from Legend. Yes, it's true that Legend needed to spice up his sound a bit, but "Evolver" goes too far, stripping him of personality and turning him into just another over-produced Michael Jackson wannabe.

Some of the time, Legend's songwriting prowess pulls him through. The wistful, mid-tempo "Everybody Knows," with its effortlessly gliding melody, ranks among his greatest songs, and the same can be said for "I Love, You Love," a late-album treat with Legend's falsetto floating over a sparse, fuzzy electric guitar. Even "Cross the Line," despite its irritating drum machines and dim-witted lyrics ("Not just my home girl / Time to take you home girl"), works, thanks to its sweeping and immediately memorable chorus.

On the whole, though, "Evolver" tries far too hard to sound "hip" and "modern." Case in point: the shimmering, wildly over-produced "It's Over," which just about holds together until Kanye West stops by, dropping a horrendous auto-tune verse which makes him sound like a sexually frustrated robot. Hearing West stutter out lines like "Just like Pamela Anderson's career / except without the titties" in his painfully treated, synthetic voice is a cringe-inducing experience.

It's nothing, however, compared to the album's closing song, the hysterically over-the-top power ballad "If You're Out There," which sounds like Legend's attempt to rewrite "Circle of Life." But instead of hitting the target of "sweeping grandeur" or even "guilty pleasure," Legend overshoots the mark wildly, landing somewhere closer to Phil Collins' "Tarzan" song on the quality scale of Disney themes. Canned strings, check; children's choir on the chorus, check; offensive over-use of words like "generation" and "future" and "peace," check. All in all, it's soppy enough to make even a hardcore Celine Dion fan wretch in horror.

"Evolver" is a quite a change, then; a significant artistic makeover for the self-proclaimed Legend. But what the singer - and the phalanx of producers behind him - have failed to realize is that it was exactly Legend's geeky retro style that made him cool in the first place. Critics and listeners alike flocked to buy his first two albums for his uncanny ability to revive Stevie Wonder and Al Green, to somehow recreate the golden age of '70s soul that seems so long ago now. In the sterilized world of contemporary R&B - where it's Amerie one day and Ashanti the next - Legend provided a window to the past, to a time when soul singers actually had soul. "Evolver" is largely bereft of that warm nostalgia, an album as slick and premeditated as his previous two were charming and organic. If Christina Aguilera hadn't nabbed the title a few years back, I'd be voting for Legend's next album to be called "Back to Basics." Let's hope he gets the memo.

2 out of 5

Pros: Flashes of strong songwriting and of course Legend's smooth-as-velvet voice.

Cons: Legend has clearly spent too much time hanging out with rappers; abandoning the warm neo-soul that made his name, "Evolver" sees the singer throwing himself headfirst into the slick surface-no-substance world of contemporary R&B. This is Chris Brown territory, folks: It would be fine coming from a pre-fab teenage pin-up but isn't fine when it's coming from arguably the most mature and talented singer in his field.