While the single was yet another Top 20 hit for Derulo, an announced September 2013 album, titled Tattoos, was shrunk down to a five-song EP in the U.S. “‘Is that the dude who sings this song? Oh, shit, and he sings all these other songs I know?'”īy the time “The Other Side” was released in 2013 as Derulo’s first post-injury single, Derulo’s Sweet Talker sound had proven to be radio-effective but not career-advancing. “People were asking, ‘Who’s this dude who hurt himself?’ ” Derulo told Billboard last year. In some ways, Derulo became more well-known for the dance mishap than for his five Top 20 hits. In January 2012, Derulo suffered a scary accident while rehearsing for a world tour, snapping a vertebra in his neck after attempting an acrobatic move that forced him to wear a neck brace for four months. “Don’t Wanna Go Home” and “It Girl,” from his 2011 sophomore album Future History, each reached the Top 20 of the Hot 100 both songs were passable dance floor bids, but neither helped develop him as an engaging artist. He was the guy who crooned his own name at the beginning of his songs.Īnd for a while, Derulo got a fair amount of burn out of being the Sweet Talker.
He was equipped with pinpoint dance moves and slyly impressive vocal skills, but lacked the universality of Usher and the attitude of Chris Brown. He leaned toward upbeat R&B on his album cuts, but wasn’t a heartthrob in the Trey Songz vein or a suave critical darling like Ne-Yo. All of these singles were stylishly innocent Top 40 confections, playing connector to more sonically daring contemporary hits like Rihanna‘s “Rude Boy” and Usher‘s “OMG” on radio.ĭerulo, meanwhile, was presented in full Sweet Talker mode, a sunny and harmlessly likable pop artist with chiseled abs and family-friendly love stories.
“Whatcha Say” was part of the brief Jamaican pop movement that also unearthed singers like Sean Kingston and Iyaz, but Derulo possessed a better understanding of melody and pop songwriting than those male artists, and scored Top 10 hits with “In My Head” and “Ridin’ Solo” from his self-titled studio album.
Beginning with 2009’s “Whatcha Say,” which niftily flipped a piece of Imogen Heap‘s single “Hide and Seek” into a mid-tempo soul cry and spent one week at the top of the Hot 100 chart, Derulo dutifully played the neighborly sweetheart of synth-pop.
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