The-Dream, “Too Good to Leave” MP3

As others have noted, this The-Dream song is a Love King outtake, and it sounds like one—mainly because it is clearly unmastered, unmixed, unharmonized and probably a first take. Rather than wax snark about "haha oh no it wasn't too good to leave," we prefer to listen to it in context: think of Dream's occasionally wavering throat and falsetto quivers as true representations of he emotions he was having in the studio, emotions disrobed of Tricky Stewart's high-gloss studio tricks. In this way, "Too Good" builds up Dream's myth even more—the man who can make the catchiest pop hooks resonate with such raw feeling is, indeed, feeling those things, particularly when singing a breakup song for an album cut amid a real life breakup. And in this way, don't the flaws just make the song sound more human, more relatable, in a way we rarely get from singers writing consistent number ones? Track post-jump.