Trey Songz

"Neighbors Know My Name"

by Amy Baily

The first time I heard Trey Songz's syrupy falsetto croon, "Take this pillow right here, grab this/ And I know you're so excited, if you bite it, they won't hear," about a third of the way through "Neighbors Know My Name," I blushed and turned off the radio. Then I turned it back on, louder. This surprising, infectious track says a lot about social intercourse in 2010 — it's a slow, sultry R&B study of the deterioration of neighbor relations in an era of cost-cutting construction. When Songz boasts, "Way you screamin', scratchin', yellin'/ Bet the neighbors know my name/ They be stressin' while we sexin'," he's commenting on the thin walls separating one apartment from another; intimate acts from public performances; and love songs from self-love songs — we hear the singer's name three times but never learn his lover's. Chivalry? Rivalry? I don't know. But I bet my neighbors know his name.