Forever In a Day

Day26's second album, released almost exactly a year after the chart-topping debut, entered the Billboard 200 chart at number two, demonstrating that the Making the Band stars have not yet slipped into irrelevance. Some R&B fans will always think of Day26 as a novelty, since the group was launched on television, but declaring this disc a fall-off in popularity would be true by the most minor of technicalities: one chart position. Executive producer Diddy once again enlists many of the biggest songwriters and producers — Bryan-Michael Cox, Jermaine Dupri, Tim & Bob, Tank, T-Pain, Ne-Yo, Mario Winans — some of whom collaborated with the group on Day26. Even though the members had a hand in co-writing roughly half the material, there's not much to differentiate this set from the first, apart from a slight increase in material best suited for clubs, which plays to the group's strengths. That said, three of the album's highlights are the typically midtempo and dreamily romantic Tim & Bob cuts ("Think of Me," "Remind Me of You"), and the surprisingly effective Dream/Tricky Stewart knock-off ballad ("Girlfriend").