“Frank” was hailed as a star-making debut when it was issued in Britain four years ago. (Inverted it, even.) It’s no wonder her label seems keen to remind us of the genuine talent behind that beehive and mascara. Then came a parade of news reports, tabloid and otherwise, that messed with the angle of her ascent.
KELEFA SANNEHĪMY WINEHOUSE “Frank” (Island/Universal Republic)Įarlier in the year, when the “No, no, no” refrain in Amy Winehouse’s defining single, “Rehab,” felt a lot more lighthearted, few people would have predicted that her next American release would be a retread. Sparks murmuring the same note (it’s a G) 33 times in a row, accompanied by a chiming music box, a buzzing bass and a few echoey hand claps.Īs the music builds into an electro-pop lullaby, she delivers the chorus: “See my side/And I’ll see yours better.” It’s a bland, down-to-earth promise, and it sounds great floating in space. It starts softly and restrainedly, with Ms.
If you’re so inclined, you can pretend the album ends two tracks earlier, with “See My Side,” which must be one of the year’s prettiest pop songs. “No Air,” with Chris Brown, breathes life into the overfamiliar piano line from Coldplay’s “Clocks.” And “Permanent Monday” is a hybrid so bizarre it’s all but impossible to hate: Imagine Radiohead’s “Subterranean Homesick Alien” slowly morphing into a power ballad worthy of Celine Dion.Ī couple of inspirational songs - “This Is My Now,” her “American Idol” signature, and the heavy-handed “God Loves Ugly” - are hidden at the end, perhaps to remind listeners of the middling CD this could have been but isn’t. More often, though, the musical references are unexpected. It was produced by the Norwegian duo Stargate, and it sounds like a cousin of Beyoncé’s “Irreplaceable,” another Stargate production. “Tattoo” is her absurdly catchy current single: “You’re on my heart, just like a tattoo,” she sings, although the line might make more literal sense if she sang, “You’re on my tattoo, just like a heart.” Sparks knows her way around a lightweight love song. No “American Idol” viewer will be surprised to hear that Ms. “I’m sick and tired of them bad boys,” she sings, in a clean-cut club track called “Shy Boy.” But even as she remains focused, the zooming, stuttering synthesizers hint at a sordid world of urges and impulses. Spears’s album often seemed like a musical expression of her tumultuous life, the weirdest songs on “Jordin Sparks” seem designed to tug against the smiling, God-fearing 17-year-old pictured in the CD booklet. Sparks’s addictive self-titled debut includes three tracks produced (partly or wholly) by Bloodshy & Avant, the maximalist Swedish team behind some of Ms. These opposite problems seem to have the same solution: adventurous electronic pop.
#Jordin sparks album how to
Sparks, winner of the sixth season of “American Idol,” had the opposite problem: She needed to figure out how to make the most of her smooth, unquirky voice and her wholesome reputation. Spears had a problem: She needed to figure out how to make the most of her limited-range voice and reputation for debauchery. In some ways the debut album from Jordin Sparks sounds like a mirror-image version of the new Britney Spears album, “Blackout.” Ms.
0 kommentar(er)
