Before there was a Justin T., there was a Jon B. California-based Jonathan Buck was a rarity in the late 90s. A white dude who made R&B music...not the pop-flavored R&B stuff that the boy bands would ride to success around the same time, but actual soul music. With a very strong assist from his once omnipresent mentor, Babyface, Jon made three pleasant smooth soul albums before being dropped by Sony in 2001. That fall, *NSYNC's "Gone" came out, and Jon became irrelevant. Consider it payback for Jon giving shouts out to former labelmate Brian Austin Green in the liner notes of his first album.

Three years later, Jon finally returns with album #4-Stronger Everyday. Rescued by Beyonce's daddy and placed on Sanctuary's new urban imprint, Stronger finds Jon not exactly reinventing the wheel. There's some upbeat club jams, there's the ubiquitous guest rappers, and there's a smokin' heap of vibey mid-to-slow tempo songs for the lovers. Jon even recycles former duet partners 'Face and 2Pac on this album. The results? Solid though incredibly unspectacular.

While Jon has historically written and produced most of his work, he calls out a couple of big guns here. "Hands On U" is a groove-heavy uptempo jam produced by Mike City that strongly recalls an earlier City production, "Full Moon" by Brandy. The album's opener, "Everytime," features a smokin' beat goosed by some live piano breaks by Jon himself. Just Blaze does a good job on the production tip, but the song itself is really saved by the presence of the O.D.-um, Big Baby Je-uh, um...Dirt McGirt. Ol' Dirty spits a hilariously unhinged (but on point) verse and gives the song some flavor with his unique vocalizing at the end. There's an unnecessary remix tacked onto the end featuring Beenie Man, but that's neither here nor there.

One of the more interesting things about this album is how thoroughly Jon is upstaged by his guests. Not that he doesn't have a pleasantly soulful voice, but unlike Usher or Maxwell (both of whom he occasionally resembles musically) he has no personality whatsoever. "Thru The Fire" is a mournful jam which acheives "certified fire" status thanks to Scarface, who drops in for 16 bars and leaves with the entire song. Boasting a gospel feel (mostly due to the Aretha Franklin sample interspersed throughout the song), Houston's finest drops a signature dramatic verse. It's the highlight of the album.

Even 'Pac's guest appearance (grave robbing at it's finest) isn't as bad as I'd like it to be, cosidering I'm no fan of exploitation of the dead. "Pt. 2" contains several things the last Jon/Pac collaboration (on "Are U Still Down"-released literally 2 weeks after Pac's murder) didn't have-namely a chorus and a melody. Pac drops tight rhymes here, although I think they were lifted off of a previously released song. In Jon's never ending quest to feature everyone with "Face" at the end of their name, Babyface shows up on the affable, guitar-based "What I Like About You," one of the better songs on the album until Jon busts out with the sing-song style perfected by R. Kelly on songs like "Snake" and "Fiesta."

Noticed yet that I haven't mentioned one Jon B. solo cut yet? Not to say that the songs are bad. "One More Dance" straddles the line between Marvin Gaye's "After The Dance" and R. Kelly's "Step in the Name of Love," while "I'm Right Here" is a peppy club jam that you might find yourself jiggling your glass to at 8 PM before anyone has really gotten to the club. It's got sort of an Asian motif-although it kinda winds up sounding like the intro to "Hong Kong Phooey" with an R&B club beat behind it. "Az U" is a credible romantic jam which manages to straddle the borderline between seductive and crass, while "Multiple" finds the line and jumps headfirst into it, as Jon promises his lady multiple orgasms. No, I'm not making that up.

I will admit to always perusing an album's credits to see if I recognize any names, and I gotta say i'm a bit surprised at some of the ones that show up here. Fellow C-list R&B singer Tank shows up to produce two tracks, among them the bouncy title track, which follows the current trend of speeding up an old soul song-in this case the string part to a Sister Sledge tune-and basing a song around it. It's more interesting for the sonics than the vocals.

Remeber Portrait? If you were a fan of R&B music in the early 90's, you may recall those Boyz II Men ripoffs. Their lead singer Michael Angelo Saulsberry shows up for the aforementioned "I'm Right Here," showing off previously unrecognized production skills. Envyi (remember "You Can Swing My Way?") pops up for background vocals on "Lay It Down," while the most baffling appearance on this album is made by Mr. Oochie Coochie La La La himself, MC Brains (now going by "Brainz") who mans the boards for the club jam "Lately" (which sounds a lot like 112). It's as if the R&B/Hip-Hop Class of 1992 had a reunion on Jon's album. Now if they'd only gotten Mad Cobra to replace Beenie Man on that remix so he could sing "flex...time to have sex" and complete the circle.

Sarcasm aside, this album is certainly not terrible. It's quite solid, on par with any of Jon's previous albums. There's certainly no rush to reach over to the stereo and hit the "stop" button. However, this album does illustrate two things that have sort of been an Achilles heel for Jon from day one.

1) The dude has no personality. From a lyrical standpoint, this album is pretty much trash. Aside from the love songs 9and there ain't nothing wrong with love songs), there's the typical references to whips, name brands and Jon love the ladies long time, which leads me to...

2) Sometimes it seems like Jon is tryng just a bit too hard to be down. There's a sense of him trying so hard to fit in with the other R&B crooners, almost to the point of being patronizing, right down to not editing the ODB's use of the "N" word on the album (I'm sorry, even if you're black-you don't use the "N" word on a white person's album...shouldn't even use it on your own damn album) Any self-respecting music fan knows that soul has no color. I'll recommend this album (with reservations), but I'd feel a lot better recommending it if Jon revealed a little more of himself instead of trying to subscribe to every R&B cliche in the book.

Michael Speed