ARTIST: Usher TITLE: 8701 LABEL: Arista GENRE: R&B GRABBER: PPCMRipper/WinDVD ENCODER: Lame 3.97 / -V2 --vbr-new QUALITY: 192 Kbps Avg / 48.0 KHz / Joint Stereo PLAYTIME: 0h 57min 08sec total SIZE: 78.86MB RELEASE DATE: 2005-02-08 RIP DATE: 2007-10-19 Track List ---------- 01. Intro-lude 8701 (Produced By Usher) 0:44 02. U Remind Me (Produced By Eddie Hustle, 4:26 ByStorm Ent., Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis) 03. I Don't Know (Feat. P. Diddy) 4:26 (Produced By The Neptunes) 04. Twork It Out (Produced By Jimmy Jam & 4:42 Terry Lewis) 05. U Got It Bad (Produced By Jermaine 4:07 Dupri) 06. If I Want To (Produced By Babyface & 3:48 Jermaine Dupri) 07. I Can't Let U Go (Produced By Jermaine 3:28 Dupri) 08. U Don't Have To Call (Produced By The 4:28 Neptunes) 09. Without U (Interlude) (Produced By 0:53 Usher) 10. Can U Help Me (Produced By Jimmy Jam & 5:35 Terry Lewis) 11. How Do I Say (Produced By Jimmy Jam & 5:38 Terry Lewis) 12. Hottest Thing (Produced By Mike City) 3:49 13. Good Ol' Ghetto (Produced By Jermaine 4:00 Dupri) 14. U-Turn (Produced By Jermaine Dupri) 3:09 15. U R The One (Produced By Soulshock & 3:55 Carlin) Release Notes: Audio Source: 2.0 24bit/48KHz Usher has the reputation as a loverman, largely because he fits the bill so well. He looks good, his material is smooth and seductive, and he has a nice voice, even if he tends to favor melisma. This has been true throughout his career, and remains true on his third album, 8701, a classy, seductive affair masterminded by Usher, Jermaine Dupri, and Antonio "L.A." Reid. There's not much new here, but Usher does move further in both directions -- the ballads are lusher, the dance numbers hit a bit harder -- but not so much so that it's really noticeable. Overall, the record is probably his strongest yet, but he still suffers from a lack of really memorable material (the singles usually are pretty good, but the album tracks are filler) and a tendency to oversing. Because of these two things, 8701 is more mood music than anything else, and while it does work fairly well on that level, it's not memorable outside of that mood. Not a dupe of previous CDDA releases. From the rules: 2. You are allowed to create a duplicate release from a release that has a source of lower quality (a different source!). In our case, DVDA is superior to CDDA. Release year is 2005.... http://www.amazon.com/8701-Usher/dp/B0006HC06O/ This is a real DVDA rip from the DVD side of the DualDisc. See audio_ts.jpg and lpcm.jpg for proof. Also, the DVDA Logo is found on scans booklet1.jpg and booklet9.jpg. WinDVD with PPCMRipper was used to decrypt and convert the .mlp files to .wav. From there foobar was used as a LAME GUI to convert to .mp3. Unfortunately, there was no sampling rate higher than 48 KHz to choose from; probably because Sony (which Arista is under) markets the rival SACD format. This is why there needs to be a loseless scene. Why convert this beautiful sounding DVDA sound to lossy mp3 when it could be saved to lossless flac? Kinda defeats the purpose of ripping from a better source, don't ya think? Don't forget to support the artists! We did. Group News ---------- We're looking for: -Rippers With Unreleased Music, New Promo or Pre/Retails. -Peeps with albums 2003 and older for Internal VBR ripping and archiving. -Secure EU/AS HQs. If you have any of the above, find us. Greets to all the groups who put out quality releases, our sites for hosting us and people who have helped along the way.