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You probably didn't expect to hear the opening of Tears for Fears' "Head Over Heels" when you pressed play on Diddy's Press Play, but the proud example of Kanye West has set this man free. By the third song you'll be surprised he didn't just redo Kanye's "Touch the Sky." So why does every zippy dance number on Press Play have to slow down after the workmanlike guest raps so Puffy can say shit like "oh yeah . . . feels like we flying, don't it?" Why are there interludes where he drawls about how his mom said he was gonna be somebody so he decided he might as well be great over some harp tinkle, featuring groans from Avant?

And so it goes, with more Kanye horns and then, finally, a Christopher Wallace reference. Did it really take him 11 tracks? Overall, Diddy sounds most concerned about the transience of love: "Thank you for showing me how to love . . . thank you for showing me." He actually says a bunch of nice stuff to the invisible ladies of Press Play, but he sounds really drunk: "You stayed by me through that J.Lo stuff." Huh? And "I, too, must download me in every residence" kind of rhymes with "intention to be the first black president."

It's a shame Diddy felt the need to make two-thirds of this album. "Special Feeling" is the best Ready for the World song in 20 years. The blast-from-Craig-David's-past "Thought You Said" featuring Brandy would be a great Brandy single, and "Last Night" is the latest example of a pop act doing Basement Jaxx better than Basement Jaxx. But to get to this, you have to hear Diddy rap "The heartache and pain/ Sometimes it goes to your brain/ Sometimes it drives you insane/ Sometimes our joy is our pain" and threaten to shoot Keysiha Cole's motherfucker up. The track featuring Mary J. Blige is recommended to those of you who liked "1 Thing" a helluvalot, and the closer featuring Jamie Foxx is strictly for whomever Diddy is proposing to.