Judging by his lyrics, singer-songwriter Ne-yo is totally taken with the lady in his life and committed to making their relationship work. It's a struggle, you see, because all the women he beds become addicted to him.

Such are the problems faced by the 24-year-old R&B boy wonder, whose problems are likely to compound with the release of his sophomore effort, Because of You. The album has climbed to No7 on the Billboard R&B charts and its title track sits at No4 on Billboard's Hot 100 list. All of which means Ne-yo's little black book is going to be stuffed with even more names wanting to get into bed with him - literally or figuratively.

Already he's written top 10 hits for Rihanna and Beyonce and has promised the same to Usher and American Idol contestant Jennifer Hudson. Word also has it that the Black Eyed Peas' Will.i.am has asked Ne-yo to help out on Michael Jackson's comeback album, due out this year.

It's not hard to understand why he's such a commodity, given a voice that lies somewhere between Wacko and Stevie Wonder and his ability to write songs that any twentysomething male can (or would like to) identify with. And if his lyrics are little more than the suffering of an overactive libido, he at least suffers in complete sentences. (For comparison, check out current chart-topper Buy U a Drank by T-Bone and Yung Joc.)

But sounding like one of the past princes of R&B or as marginally more intelligent than your peers will get you only so far. Ne-yo's real problem is that his music sounds like something you've already heard. Like the women he beds in his songs, you don't mind listening once, but then you wish they would go away.