Pixie Lott is a UK act with a few #1s under her belt who has failed numerous times to properly crossover to the United States like so many of her contemporaries have done successfully. Her voice, not necessarily her vocal range, is a nice blend of Christina Aguilera, Demi Lovato, and Jessie J with a light touch of Natasha Bedingfield here and there. Fans of those four can definitely salvage some great songs out of her mostly lackluster discography.
"Nasty", the lead single and opening track to Lott's self-titled third album, is a deceiving first single. The track is very upbeat and fun with both its lyrics and production and she does a great job of showing off her voice throughout the song. The track overall is quality and reminiscent of Back to Basics and Burlesque Christina Aguilera which makes sense considering the track was originally an Aguilera demo that was ultimately passed on after issues with sample clearance.
What is so deceiving about "Nasty" is that Pixie Lott is nowhere near as great as "Nasty". Yes, the album is in a similar throwback vein as "Nasty" with both its uptempos and ballads (which, noted, is why the album is very cohesive), but, similar to Lott's discography, Pixie Lott has just as many bad songs as it does good ones. There is no in between.
Tracks like the clever and hypersexual "Champion" and the Demi Lovato-esque "Raise Up" are among the best and "Lay Me Down", "Break Up Song", and "Ain't Got You" are also standout tracks. Meanwhile, the rest of the album has songs that lack an edge to them ("Heart Cry" and "Bang"), are poorly executed ("Kill A Man" and "Oceans"), and have no replay value ("Leave You" and "Cry And Smile".)
Despite the album being self-titled, Pixie Lott fails to make me feel like she has opened her heart to us and is sharing something personal with us. The album is no different from her past releases sans more cohesion. Her debut album Turn It Up and her sophomore follow up Young Foolish Happy are plagued by filler-like tracks that pull down the overall quality of each of the albums. Lott, as an artist, lacks the ability to add personality to the music she makes thus making her sound like she is simply covering songs by other artists without any knowledge or understanding of the meaning to them.
Pixie truly shines the best when she works with producer/songwriter Mads Hauge. While I am not a fan of "Kiss the Stars", their other collaborations are amazing: "Mama Do (Uh Oh, Uh Oh)", "Cry Me Out", "Boys and Girls", "Perfect", and now the aforementioned "Champion".
Even with all that being said, I feel like Pixie Lott is Lott's best album. Its redeeming quality is that it has a great deal of cohesion, allowing for an easy listening experience despite the polarizing quality of the music.
Great reviews. This is turning out to be a more articulated metacritic user scores.
I really enjoy Aathew's reviews and his layouts. But...
She only released one single in the US.
Thank you!! And...
Yeah, I am wrong, but I think with that line I was more so saying that with each album release, it nor its singles were enough to cross the pond whether they were pushed or not.
DDD @ me saying "cross the pound" at first.
Quote:
Originally posted by alexanderao
This is actually a very good review. I agree with most of it.
Thank you!
I need to go listen to the FKA Twigs girl, but I second Wiz Khalifa's album to be added to the pool.
I remember back in 2009, when I saw the Boys and Girls music video, I just fell in love with her. Her music was catchy, she danced (sorta), she can sing and she looks so damn good. Then her sophomore album came and I sorta lost interest in her. Stuff like All About Tonight were not the kind of songs I wanted from her and her image was rather icky. Thankfully, I decided to give her another try this era. However, from what I've heard, her album is usually disjointed and full of cheap album fillers. That got me a little hesitant towards giving this a listen. But I must say, this album did not meet those horrible expectations of mine. But it didn't exactly surpass it by a whole lot.
One thing I really like this album is the production. The production is a sorta 80s throwback retro sound and it is consistent throughout the album. Though I would love more songs like What Do You Take Me For?, what she desperately needs is an album with cohesion. With a consistent sound, she did it.
However, it may sound like everything just sounds the same. It is not good for all the songs to sound like their of the same level or too similar. There are too many songs on the album that offer nothing special, a.k.a filler. An album that is too even isn't good. Also, what I would've loved from her are huge power ballads a.k.a Broken Arrow (probably my favourite Pixie song ever), but I feel none of the ballads here reach that level of grandiose. This is a little sad, considering that I find she shines the most in ballads.
Despite this, there are a couple of standouts. Break Up Song is a mid-tempo song that somehow manages to be catchy. Champion sounds like a straight up hit and like it's title, makes you truly feel triumphant, especially with that new wavey guitar riff at the bridge.
Overall, I am not disappointed. Some songs from this lot deserve to be stuck on repeat, while others (Cry and Smile, Bang etc.) deserve to be trashed in the parking lot. I'm just sad that she's flopping a lot, she used to be the British IT girl in 2009 where a lot of people loved her. Sigh, at least she's not sporting an ugly bob now. She looked a lot worse then.
One last thing though, I secretly bop to Kiss the Stars.
After a long wait, Pixie lott has finally released her new self-titled album. Having only heard her singles of her previous albums, I expected a lot of hit-and-miss. This was not really the case however. Seperately, the majority of the songs are simply okay; they're solid but don't really stand out. Together, they don't seem to form a whole. It's an inconsistent album that has a lot of songs with a lot of character, but put together it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.
Some stand-out tracks are Lay Me Down, Champion, Kill a Man, Heart Cry, and the flawless Raise Up. These are the only songs that make the album worthwhile. 5 songs on one album is more than enough for me, however the other songs just don't do it for me at all. My biggest complaint would be that the lyrics are often overly cheesy or lazy. This is a pet peeve of mine and it happens often, but this album is overfull with it.
Verdict
The gems on the album more than make up for the incoherent mediocrity of the rest of the album
But...
Let me throw something together REAL quick.
