R. Kelly: "Religious"

Sylvester Kelly’s last night on the town, 2007’s Fuckin’ Two Holes Interchangeably, seemed a candid wink at the attitude in which anyone should—and must if you respect, ya know, human beings—listen to and be okay with an R. Kelly album. Not just because he’s a statutory rapist and at the time had yet to face up to that or look into his maturing daughters’ eyes knowing they’d soon come to an understanding of just who their daddy actually is, but because that album, deliciously shameless, was a consolidation of everything ridiculous about the man. “Man,” of course, is a euphemism: R. Kelly is more like a set of lucrative ideas about how real people act inserted, stickily, into various gaping slots; he’s the punchline to “What’s the difference between jam and jelly?” or the essence of a particularly queasy dead baby joke; he’s your sexasaurus.

And so “Religious,” Kelly’s second single from his upcoming Untitled, which is actually titled that, kinda like this band I knew in high school called With Special Guest, which was funny in high school, is a moronic song about love and devotion because R. Kelly’s singing it. “Song,” of course, is a euphemism: this is the mathematical average of R. Kelly’s voice and two other gleaming, squiggly, shiny things, plus an extended metaphor that’s borderline offensive intended to be sincere and heartfelt. Which is pretty much any R. Kelly ballad, in opposition to any R. Kelly club track, and so is unbelievably chintzy with a semi-catchy, two-line chorus. In this particular iteration, Kelly croons, “There’s something religious about you / There’s something church about you,” church the adjective meaning predominantly on one’s knees? Later, as the song’s bridge swells to emphasize R.’s rejuvenated sense of faith in love and such, he ejaculates, “church!” in the same way Lil Wayne spurts out, “chuch!” Also, according to track lists of Untitled, songs following this are “#1 Fan” and then “Be My Number 2,” so there’s no way Kels can keep a straight face for longer than these four minutes, four minutes I’ve just described verbatim so that you can skip them. This is “The Champ” before the titular sex romp, the saying of Grace before eating out a stripper; this is one more reason R. Kelly should be castrated.

But anyway, now that we’ve got that outta the way, it’s time to double up!