Leon Bridges establishes a connection with the present through a mature, polished soul and R&B sound
Leon Bridges, the twenty nine year old American soul singer, songwriter and record producer released his second studio album Good Thing in May 2018 through Columbia Records. The album was recorded in four different studios across California, Texas and North Carolina. The music in this album portrays a connection between the present and the classic soul and R&B Music – which created a more polished and modern form of soul music. There is a total of ten tracks in this album that runs for an approximate time length of thirty five minutes. Leon Bridges co-wrote almost all the songs in this album along with other songwriters. The album mostly received positive reviews from the music critics and listeners, with a decent overall rating of 74 out of 100 on Metacritic. Newspapers like The Guardian and The Independent, and online music magazines like NME and AllMusic rated the album 4 out of 5 stars. Rolling Stone rated it 3.5 out of 5 stars and stated that the album is a “Uniquely Modern Vision of Classic Soul” and Leon Bridges is “looking for a future sound that connects his own past and the sweeping history of African-American music with the present moment”. The Canadian music magazine Exclaim! provided an excellent rating of 8 out of 10 mentioning the album as a “super-tight, 35-minute ride”. Pitchfork and Paste also provided good ratings of 7.2 and 6.7 out of 10 respectively. DJBooth described this album as more mature and forward thinking than his last album Coming Home. However, there were some mixed reviews as well from Siant Magazine and The Observer which rated the album 3 out of 5 stars. The album received significant commercial success and was featured in many music charts across the world. It debuted at number three on the US Billboard 200. It was also nominated for the best R&B album at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards. The first track of the album "Bet Ain't Worth the Hand" which was released as a single earlier in March 2018, won a Grammy for Best Traditional R&B Performance.