Joss Stone - Colour Me Free! Review
Posted by Daniel Wilcox on 10.29.2009
Label disputes aside and seeking emancipation, Joss Stone's fourth album is probably her best yet.
Joss Stone - Colour Me Free!
Review by Daniel Wilcox
Track listing:
1. Free Me
2. Could Have Been You
3. Parallel Lines [feat. Jeff Beck and Sheila E.]
4. Lady
5. 4 and 20
6. Big ’ol Game [feat. Raphael Saadiq]
7. Governmentalist [feat. Nas]
8. Incredible
9. You Got the Love
10. I Believe It to My Soul [feat. David Sanborn]
11. Stalemate [feat. Jamie Hartman]
12. Girlfriend on Demand
“Free me EMI!” purrs Joss Stone at the end of the bass-heavy groove of Colour Me Free!’s lead single “Free Me.” After two R&B-heavy records, Stone released Introducing Joss Stone in 2007, beginning her search for musical emancipation. Two years on, and the behind-the-scenes battles with the record label are still going on and as a result, this album has been delayed several times and its eventual arrival has been met with minimal fanfare as a result of the label hardly pushing or promoting it whatsoever, so much so that even they missed Stone’s blatant digs at the very people she works for. Thankfully, Stone doesn’t spend the whole record bitching and whining about her label as many artists before have done. In fact the aforementioned plea on “Free Me” is the only track that really relates to her professional struggles and thus in the remaining eleven tracks she is able to show off her prowess to a greater extent.
“Could Have Been You” and “Parallel Lines” are a swanky one-two punch that really kick the album into a higher gear after “Free Me” fails to grab the listener’s attention. The former is a slick up tempo number that features on Stone’s better vocal performances on the record. The latter features the incomparable Jeff Beck and Sheila E., but unfortunately they don’t really add much to the song, as Stone carries the vocal strongly and dominates the song. It’s a fun little number but it does leave you wondering what the point of the cameos was. The same cannot be said, however, for “Governmentalist,” which features one of the best rappers in the game right now in Nas. Nas brings a whole other dynamic to the track, which is just incredibly soulful and suave. Admittedly Nas and Joss Stone make for something of an odd pairing, but for whatever reason the song just works as Nas’ verse comes in just as Stone hits her strongest vocal moment on the song and the changes in tempo reflect what each artist brings to the table.
The album’s highlight however, is surely “Big ‘ol Game,” which sounds something like an old Al Green recording and features fellow soul singer Raphael Saadiq. Stone has described this record as a bunch of musicians getting together and just jamming, and while latter part of the albums come across as too manufactured for that to be entirely true, this song in particular definitely sounds like Stone and Saadiq had a lot of fun doing it, and here at least, Joss seems to have found the emancipation she’s been looking for.
The gospel track “You Got the Love” is the album’s biggest miss, but aside from that, there isn’t an actively bad track on the record. Joss falls into some pitfalls in later tracks that carry more of a R&B vibe whereas Joss works best when accompanied by those funky soul beats. Her voice is still fantastic however, as is demonstrated on the epic album-ender “Girlfriend on Demand,” and she gets every note just right and importantly, never lets her guests outshine as can occur when you bring in so many other artists to record on your record. Joss demonstrates clever lyricism as well, particularly on the aforementioned “Governmentalist,” an attack on the lack of forward progress of British government. While Joss Stone has been criticised in the past for trying to Americanize herself by donning a fake accent and spending too much time stateside, Colour Me Free! represents a truer, more genuine side of Stone, and it just gives you the feeling that if and when EMI eventually either let her go, or let her do her own thing, she’ll be that much better an artist.
Essential downloads: “Could Have Been You,” “Parallel Lines,” “Big ‘ol Game,” “Governmentalist,” “Incredible” and “Girlfriend on Demand.”
The 411: While the outstanding vocal carries the latter half of the album, for the most part this is a tremendously accomplished soulful record. Joss Stone is an odd choice for a symbol of artistic defiance but on Colour Me Free! she is just that, ignoring the troubles of her career and simply focusing on putting out a great record. This chick may get a lot of criticism from a lot of different people, but there's denying her voice and songwriting ability. The soul revivalist in her may not succeed in bringing this kind of music back to prominence, but it certainly puts forward a good case for doing so.
