Terrence Howard

Hollywood's periodic invasion of the music industry can lead to, to put it lightly, interesting results. More often than not, when an actor or actress get a head swollen by celebrity status and decides to try the "biz" on for size, music fans are left with little more than a shiny drink coaster. (Does anyone remember the music careers of Bruce Willis or Keanu Reeves? Didn't think so.) While there has been the occasional thespian that have pulled decently entertaining efforts out of his or her hat (Jada Pinkett-Smith and Juliette Lewis come to mind), history has taught us that songwriting is something best left to the pros. Fortunately for fans of Oscar-nominee Terrence Howard, his debut album, Shine Through It, is a shimmering exception to the norm.

Feeding off his experience from the Hustle And Flow soundtrack, as well as a recent stint on Broadway, Howard brings a wide array of influences and instruments to the table and funnels them all into a soulful and, at times, dramatic outlet. Bringing together bits of Latin guitar (played by the actor himself), jazzy horns and keys and a soul-soaked voice, Howard proves that his musical career wasn't one born of boredom on a movie set; this is his passion. The intimacy and immediate accessibility of "Love Makes You Beautiful" and "Sanctuary" or the stellar instrumental "Spanish Love Affair" not only gives credibility to Terrence Howard the songwriter, but also leads one to believe that his success as an actor could easily be repeated through his musical endeavors. At the very least, we aren't subjected to any Don Johnson cover tunes.

–Ryan Ogle
09.15.08

Like many actors, Terrence Howard has been playing music for as long as he's been singing -- it just so happened that his breakthrough film role was an Oscar-nominated turn as a rapper in Hustle & Flow, a role that blurred the lines between actor and musician and helped lead to a major-label contract for Howard. Hustle & Flow may have opened the doors for Howard but it should in no way be considered as an indication of what can be heard on his debut Shine Through It, as this is grandly, absurdly ambitious, symphonic folk-soul, inadvertently reminiscent of another Terence, Terence Trent D'Arby. Like TTD, Terrence Howard refuses to see borders in music, an admirable trait that leads him to create a record that plays like neither fish nor fowl filtered through Sade and James Taylor. With a dash of Cab Calloway. And lots of flute. Plus a children's choir on occasion. They don't make albums like this anymore -- in fact, it's unclear if they ever made records like this, for as clear as Howard's influences are, he assembles them in bewildering ways, where his juxtapositions of folk, bossa nova, jazz, and soul seem as accidental as they are intentional. Ambition is not Howard's problem -- if anything, he has too much of it -- but execution is, as Shine Through It swings between sharp, tight songs and shapeless noodling. Howard seems most effective on a smaller scale, like on the bluesy evocative "Mr. Johnson's Lawn," as the splashier tunes have the tendency to feel underdeveloped or say simple things absurdly elaborately -- but Shine Through It just wouldn't make sense if it was scaled down, as grandiosity comes so naturally to Howard he doesn't quite seem to realize that his clichés, both lyrical and musical, were not invented by him. And while that can frequently be maddening (and not a little bit pompous), it is also undeniably interesting, at once a quintessential oddity and a strangely promising debut. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide