"Versus" continues Usher's return

Grammy-winning R&B singer Usher released two albums earlier this week in an effort to maintain the momentum of his comeback and generate more album sales from "Raymond vs. Raymond," released in March of this year.

"Versus," an extended play album of "Raymond vs. Raymond", was one of the singer's releases from earlier this week.

The album includes seven new tracks in addition to current R&B hit "There Goes My Baby" and "Somebody to Love (Remix)", a track that features teen pop megastar Justin Bieber.

Raymond, 31, teamed up with Bieber, 16, to try and gain new fans and appeal to younger audiences. Bieber cites

Raymond as one of his biggest musical inspirations. Thus, the collaboration is beneficial on both of the music superstars' ends.

In addition to "Versus," a deluxe edition of Raymond's sixth studio album "Raymond vs. Raymond" was released this week which features all 22 songs between the original and extended play album.

Although the original "Raymond vs. Raymond" album was released back in March, it was just recently certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) earlier this month.

Given the current state of the economy and the commonplace of illegal music downloads, an artist reaching platinum status within a five month timeframe is nothing less than spectacular.

Nevertheless, the success of an international superstar with as many accolades as Raymond does equate to past accomplishments from the A-list R&B singer.

Looking back in retrospect, Raymond's 2004 release

"Confessions" is currently the last album to have reached diamond status (10 million albums sold) in the United States and has sold over 20 million copies worldwide.

"Confessions" also made history for having the highest first week sales for any R&B artist in history.

"Here I Stand," the singer's 2008 release had mediocre success pushing just over 1.5 million sales then; however, the album has sold over five million copies to date.

The singer's latest effort "Raymond vs. Raymond" has received mixed reviews; still, the album has still been able to have a considerable amount of achievement, debuting at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart, pushing a notable 329,107 copies its first week .

The Los Angeles Times gave the album three out of four stars, but a USA Today review gave the album two-and-a-half out of four stars and says the album features "lackluster R&B jams lazily strewn with ooohs, grunts and generic club beats."

Raymond seems to be longing for relevancy and doing whatever it takes to obtain it even if it means having to release three albums in under a year.

Hopefully the re-release and extended play albums are able to accumulate high sales and repeat Raymond's success from 1990 and early 2000 releases.

These two new albums could be determining factors as to whether Raymond will ever be back on top of the music industry and reign as "King of R&B".