With four albums under his belt, Gerald had seen his ups and downs during the early half of his career. As such, with the release of Gerald's World, the verdict was still up in the air as to what kind of album we could expect.
The album starts with an interesting number for Gerald, with "Soul Mate." The track has a catchy chorus that runs at a nice pace and is great to sing along to. The song doesn't have much punch but it's a nice light number by Gerald that's more than entertaining enough.
With a misleading title that gives the image of a club song, "DJ Played Our Song," is quite the contrary. The song is slow with Gerald singing to an ex-girlfriend. He tells the girl that while he understands that they're broken up, he's not sure what he'll do if the dj plays their song. The track is creative and a solid listen and easily the highlight of the album.
The album unfortunately takes a dive at this point, with "What Makes It Good To You." The track feels overly long and doesn't really have anything to it. The track is bland and really, nothing to get excited over.
"You're A Keeper" is a decent improvement, with a solid chorus. The early portion of the song has an almost nursery rhyme style to it, and it continually improves throughout. While it's not the best track on the album, it's still enjoyable.
The fifth song on the album, "#1" is okay, though the chorus is really repetitive. Likewise, the lyrics don't have much meat to them and the song really seems to want to drive home the concept of the number one. Overall, it's an okay song but easily skipped over.
"Smile For Me" is a bland track with unenthusiastic vocals. The lyrics are bland and really, the song deserves to be skipped. Just go on to the next track.
With "Can't Win," Gerald's voice is laced with sorrow as he finds himself in a relationship that's going downhill fast. No matter what decisions he makes, he knows that things won't work out well. The song doesn't have much punch and doesn't work hard to win you over, but it still does a fair job.
Unfortunately, the album seems stuck in blandness. "Same Ol" is about getting cheated on and being able to do what you want. While the song's listenable, it lacks any real emotion. It gets repetitive and the same few lines seem to run over and over.
"Just Us" is a momentary improvement, handling itself with a nice chorus and some tense delivery. I don't think I've heard the words "woo woo" before, but it's still cool. The song is enjoyable and one of the better tracks on the album.
At the tenth spot, "Got Love" is another boring track that's easily skipped over. It is slow, repetitive and filled with long lulls.
In "Make My Day," Gerald seems to try and break the duldrums by adding Sean LeVert and Joe Little III to the mix, but it's not enough. The track is weak, seems repetitive, and is another skippable track.
The album sees one last real bright spot with "Made to Love Ya." The song is largely made by its chorus which is sweet and filled with great lines. The verses are great as well and the song would have been awesome, were it not for its limited meat. Overall, there's not really that much to the track and it seems to depend too much on its chorus. Still, it's a worthwhile listen.
"What You Cryin About" is another track that seems bland, lackluster and emotionless. Despite, the track has a few good lines as Gerald tries to convince a girl to stop crying. He thinks they should talk over there problems and work things out. It's okay, but could use work.
The fourteenth track on the album, "Forever You and Me" starts off solid with a great first half of the track. However, the song loses its way in the second half, and begins to drone on. Near the end, the vocals blend together and the track lacks any strong delivery. Still, the song is good and one of the better tracks on the album.
Closing off the album, "Dream With No Love" is an alright song, though it's nothing exciting. A far cry from Gerald's best, but still, the song is a decent listen.
The album tries to capitalize on the strength of "Made To Love Ya" with a remix at the end. Overall, it's a nice remix in that it at least brings something new to the game. Too many remixes are just a slight change of beat or a new line or two. In this remix, nearly all of the lyrics are changed and the tone is much different. The slowness of the track loses some of the emotion but the bout with the girl's lover is cute. Overall, the song is pretty good, though the original was better.