Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Ne-Yo has launched an assault on the quality of lyrics in the dance music that is dominating the charts and radio airplay. He said he took time to make sure his fifth album R.E.D. had lyrics with meaning. His favourite example is “Let Me Love You” , his current single and a Billboard Top 10 pop hit. “I told myself if I’m going to do this dance music or electronic or techno or whatever it is, I need to do it from a standpoint of making mine stand out from everybody else’s, meaning a Ne-Yo dance record is going to have some kind of depth in the lyrics because the lyrics is who I am,” he said. “I feel like that’s what people have come to appreciate and expect from me. A lyric that’s gonna touch. A lyric that’s gonna strike a nerve.” The 33-year-old said he felt under pressure to score with this album because his last offering, “Libra Scale” was a disappointment commercially. This time around, he said he wants to prove he’s still a hit maker. “There was almost an essence of me needing to prove something. A lot of people have told me that I don’t have anything to prove, that I’ve achieved enough where I don’t need to prove anything but I do feel like I feel like with every album I need to prove that this is what I do and I’m not going anywhere any time soon so that was my whole energy. My last album didn’t perform as well as my previous three, I felt with this one, I definitely needed to remind people this is what I do and this is who I am.” Ne-Yo, who has multiple hits of his own and has also written for other stars like Mary J.Blige and Beyonce. He describes this new album as a perfect blend of RnB and pop. And he will be hoping the release lives up to its name: R.E.D. stands for ‘Realising Every Dream’.