Barnes & Noble
After his highly publicized divorce from pop sensation and Newlyweds costar Jessica Simpson, Nick Lachey could be forgiven for privately licking his wounds. Instead, Lachey pours his heartbreak into the 12 cathartic tracks found on What's Left of Me. Vocally, the former 98 Degrees frontman has never sounded better -- his rich tenor rising to a surprisingly effective falsetto on the plaintive "I Can't Hate You Anymore" -- reminding listeners why he was the headline act before he married the buxom blonde. The disc starts on a strong-yet-somber note with the title track, which finds the beefcake crooner lamenting, "I don't want to waste another day stuck in the shadow of my mistakes," amid a dramatic string arrangement. Lyrically, the rest of the album follows suit and sounds something like an extended therapy session, as Lachey works through the five stages of grief. Both denial and anger lurk beneath "Shades of Blue," where he muses, "The only peace I find is pretending that you're still laying next to me" and then demands, "Why did you have to leave? Why did you have to set me free?" On "On Your Own," he bargains with his ex and vows, "If you're lost and barely breathing I will find you and carry you back home," before depression sets in on the angry rocker "I Do It for You" ("I want you to bleed and see how it feels"). Finally, Lachey accepts the end of marital bliss, as he and MTV viewers knew it, on the compelling finale "Resolution," where the heartthrob sings accompanied solely by a sparse piano arrangement. Although he endlessly exploits his relationship with Simpson, the material gives Lachey his best album yet.
Tracy E. Hopkins
All Music Guide
Gossip hounds hoping that Nick Lachey's first post-divorce album would be laden with songs about his doomed marriage to Jessica Simpson will be pleased -- scratch that, delighted -- with What's Left of Me. If the album title doesn't clue you in to what it's all about, a glance at the song titles tip off its content: "I Can't Hate You Anymore," "On Your Own," "Outside Looking In," "Everywhere But Here," "Ghosts," "You're Not Alone," "Resolution" -- it's a virtual greatest-hits of brokenhearted laments, all sequenced as if it were a concept album about a man coming to terms with a painful divorce. To top it off, the centerfold photo finds Lachey sprawled out on a mattress in a grungy trailer, a stack of worn books, a TV with rabbit ears, and an empty beer bottle within reach, all bearing the unmistakable subtext that this is what the separation from Jessica has left him with (he also offers the following thanks: "most importantly, Miller Brewing...thank you!" -- but don't get ahead of yourself and think that this is a nod of gratitude to the beverages that got him through this difficult time; it's part of an extended thank you to "all of my friends who help to satisfy my sports addiction," which takes up as much space as his business, family, and fans thanks).
So, this second album from the former 98° star provides plenty of voyeuristic satisfaction, as each song -- whether it's written by Lachey or not (and chances are, it is, since he has writing credits on eight of the 12 songs) -- plays into the theme, which makes it kind of like the boy band Blood on the Tracks. And it's hard not to have sympathy for a guy whose sexpot ex allegedly cuckolded him through her affairs with Johnny Knoxville and Bam Margera (it's possible to imagine a more humiliating list of lovers for Lachey, but even if you added anyone from Wilmer Valderhama to Artie Lange to that list, it wouldn't seem as bullying, as violent as that pair; it's practically a Jackass stunt). Lachey also deserves credit for not patterning his record after Jon Secada's early work, which the Backstreet Boys inexplicably did. He tries hard to sound modern, incorporating elements of anything from Ashlee-styled modern pop (ironic, isn't it?) to Coldplay, whose spacy surfaces are heard throughout (most notably on "Beautiful," whose echoing piano riff can't help but recall "Clocks"). This gives What's Left of Me a relatively fresh feel, although the songs slavishly follow the boy band formula for the turn of the century. That doesn't mean What's Left of Me isn't interesting -- Lachey's valiant twin struggles to modernize his sound and get past his impending divorce certainly make this album interesting. It's memorably odd, and even if it suggests that Lachey may have a rough time growing old with his signature sound, it still is hard not to finish the album and have a twinge of sympathy for the guy. Plus, he'll likely have the last laugh: he and Jessica had no prenup, so half of that marriage is his, so even if What's Left of Me fails to kick-start his career, he's probably not gonna wind up struggling to get by in that trailer. Stephen Thomas Erlewine
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