Just like You (Keyshia Cole album)

Cole started work on her second album shortly after the release of her debut album, The Way It Is. Cole said about the album: "This album is more about you inside, and how you need to get yourself together, rather than pointing at somebody else and saying: 'You don't treat me right, you don't do this.' I'm truly lovin it, I listen to it myself. The last album, I didn't really listen to until I went on tour. When you listen to your own experience, it's like, I don't want to hear it anymore. I do write from my personal experiences, but I think it's very important to young women."^[3]

The first single off the album is "Let It Go", an upbeat club track that features Missy Elliott and Lil' Kim. The video premiered on BET's Access Granted on July 11, 2007. The second single is the Darkchild-produced "Shoulda Let You Go". The album was promoted with the second season of her reality show, Keyshia Cole: The Way It Is, which premiered on October 30, 2007.^[4] "Give Me More" came in at No.1 on The Editor's List inside Cove Magazine October 2007 Issue for the top 5 Soul/R&B recordings for the month of September 2007. The album's title track was the theme for Cole's BET reality series during seasons 2 and 3.

On November 27, 2008, the album was released in Australia, titled Just Like You (International Deluxe Version). This release is a hybrid of Just Like You and The Way It Is and also features Keyshia's collaborations with Diddy and Sean Paul. It contains 16 songs and has a different cover to the original version of the album. On May 9, 2008, the international album had been released in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland as well.^[5]

More information Aggregate scores, Source ...

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	72/100[7]
Review scores
Source	Rating
About.com	[8]
AllMusic	[9]
Artistdirect	[10]
Entertainment Weekly	C[11]
Rolling Stone	[12]
Stylus	A−[13]

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Just Like You received mixed to positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has an average score of 72 based on 11 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".^[7] Album of the Year collected 3 reviews and calculated an average of 67 out of 100.^[14]

Allmusic editor Andy Kellman found that "in some ways, Just Like You plays out like an album that could've only been made after Mary J. Blige's Breakthrough, balancing desperation with conviction and mixing lush arrangements with penetrative melodies. Despite all this weirdness, this stands as a very good album by Keyshia Cole to the point where Cole's voice grows from an occasionally powerful emotive device into a versatile instrument."^[9] Similarly, Thomas Inskeep from Stylus noted that while the "album isn't perfect," it proves "that Cole's capable of some seriously rich, powerful art." He added: "Cole's still finding her way, but on Just Like You it sounds as if she's already named and claimed her voice. Just Like You is tough and tender like Blige's sophomore album My Life, and while it may not quite match its predecessor's legendary status, it's not so far off and it sounds like the R&B album of the year, easily."^[13] Amy Linden of The Village Voice found that Just Like You "runs the thematic gamut" and added: "You can't deny the pleasure of finding a ride-or-die chick who’s vulnerable, but can still kick your trifling ass."^[15] Washington Post's Sarah Godfrey noted that with Just like You, the singer was "branding herself a more mature artist [...] Cole, whose strong vocals and hostility have been a bit "Scary J. Blige" in the past, reveals herself to be a grown woman searching for perspective on bad relationships."^[16]

Mariel Concepcion from Billboard felt that "not much has changed musically for Keyshia Cole since her breakthrough 2005 debut. Like that set, Just like You is rife with sincere lyrics about troubled relationships paired with soaring vocals and top-notch production."^[17] Kefela Sanneh, writing for The New York Times, found that songs on the album sounded "rather mild, and maybe even constricting," but found that Just like You was still a "likable and well-sung album; Ms. Cole may be incapable of making any other kind."^[18] Christian Hoard from Rolling Stone called the album "a work of engaging, pop-wise R&B. The beats stick mostly to jumpy keyboard bounce with string stabs and other minor adornments. The ballads are rarely more than snoozy. Cole is at her best when she gives love a kick in the pants. She is not Mary J. Blige yet, but she certainly sounds older than her years."^[12] In her review for The Boston Globe, Joan Anderman wrote that the "songstress could have used a good editor on her second album, which is bogged down by too many ballads and overly lush production. But even though Just Like You doesn't match the raw, anthemic power of her 2005 debut, The Way It Is, Cole's a singer to be reckoned with, particularly in an urban market saturated with imitators."^[19] Entertainment Weekly's Neil Drumming felt that "Cole still traffics in heartache. But whereas The Way It Is relied on raw hip-hop beats, Just Like You drips with treacly strings and piano. This counterintuitive lushness smothers Cole's modest wail on cuts like "Heaven Sent." The album's best tracks are its barest."^[11]

One week after its release, Just Like You debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200 behind Rascal Flatts's Still Feels Good (2007) and at the top of Billboard's official Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, with first week sales of 281,419 copies that was more than quadruple the first week of her debut album. ^[20] By December 2007, the album had shipped 1,000,000 copies in the United States and was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).^[20] Just Like You went on to finish 87th on the Billboard 200 and 19th on Billboard's 2007 Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums year-end chart.^[21][22] As of 2010, the album has sold 1,700,000 copies in the United States.^[23]

Notes and sample credits

• ^{^[A]} denotes co-producer
• ^{^[B]} denotes vocals producer
• ^{^[C]} denotes additional producer
• ^{^[D]} denotes uncredited producer
• "Let It Go" samples "Juicy Fruit" performed by Mtume.
• "Got to Get My Heart Back" contains excerpts from "She's Only a Woman" performed by The O'Jays.
• "Losing You" contains excerpts from "Sorry" performed by Natalie Cole.