American Idol winner Jordin Sparks returns with her second disc of r&b-flavored pop, titled after lead single "Battlefield" and feature a blend of sure-fire singles and obvious filler. The album opens with the midtempo break-up-move-on ballad "Walking On Snow" and midtempo can't-break-up-can't-move-on title track. You get where this is going? However, there are some really smart pop songs on here, like the slow-burning "Let It Rain" which features a church organ, electric guitars, club beats and divatronics all over the bridge. Sounds messy on paper, but with Jordin's emotional vocal catches it really works. Also repeating the formula of her debut album's hits "Tattoo" and "No Air" is "No Parade" a (you guessed it) break up ballad that sounds beautiful. It's not all slow and sappy songs, "S.O.S. (Let The Music Play)" needs to hit the clubs yesterday, it's one of the bubbliest songs on Battlefield.
Jordin actually co-wrote some of the songs on the album, and high-profile hired guns like Dr Luke, T-Pain and Ryan Tedder handle some of the songwriting and producing chores. But there are some majorly cheesy pop filler songs, like "Watch You Go" and "Emergency (911)" as well as some overproduced songs. "Was I The Only One" starts out beautifully, a simple guitar and some strings accompany Jordin's low vocals on the first verse and chorus. But then a mid-90s beat kicks in and it loses a lot of it's charm. "Have A Little Faith" has me in a bind, it's very "inspirational" in a slightly cheesy way, but it will probably grow on me. The bonus songs on the deluxe edition are hardly worth it, "Papercut" is basically the same as all the other breakup slow jams on the album and "Postcard" sits squarely in Disney-channel land with somewhat juvenile lyrics about following dreams to Hollywood and blah-blah-blah-fishcakes.
Over all, I'd just hit iTunes and download "Battlefield," "S.O.S.," "No Parade" and "Let It Rain" now and wait for the full disc to show up on eBay for ninety-nine cents plus shipping. (However, Jordin looks stunning on that album cover!)
No comments:
Post a Comment