The Way I See It by Raphael Saadiq

The Way I See It is the third album by American R&B singer, songwriter, and producer Raphael Saadiq. It was released on September 16, 2008, by Columbia Records. After independently releasing the 2004 album Ray Ray, Saadiq continued working on other artists' projects and developed a partnership with audio engineer Charles Brungardt, who shared the singer's fascination with historic recording techniques and equipment. In 2008, he returned from a vacation that inspired him to pursue classic soul music and recorded The Way I See It primarily at his North Hollywood studio with the engineer. Saadiq and Brungardt disregarded their previous experience in recording production while making The Way I See It. Instead, they experimented with older recording techniques in an attempt to recreate the Motown music aesthetic of the 1960s, producing a traditional soul album that draws on the Motown Sound and Philadelphia soul styles. Saadiq, whose lyrics mostly deal with romantic subject matter, described it as a series of love songs about music and remaining faithful to it despite trends. The Way I See It was initially overlooked by consumers, but charted steadily on the Billboard 200 and eventually sold 282,000 copies in the United States by 2011. It also performed well in European countries such as France, where it charted for 51 weeks. The album received mostly positive reviews from critics and was seen as an exemplary release of the classic soul revival at the time. It garnered Saadiq a newer, more diverse audience as he toured extensively in support of the album, performing concerts in the US, Europe, and Asia.