Jason Derulo - Jason Derulo Review

Posted by Dan Pardalis on 03.02.2010

With a number one single under his belt and a top ten track at the moment, Jason Derulo is living the dream, but will his self-titled debut album be included in this string of successes?

Seemingly from nowhere, this 20-year-old Miami native burst onto the scene with the number one single “Whatcha Say”, leaving many a music fan saying “Jason De-who-lo”? Singing and dancing since 5 years old, and writing songs for artists like Diddy, Cassie and Pitbull from 16, Jason Derulo has actually been doing big things off the radar for a while now. With his self-titled debut comes his time to shine, but will he be able to prove himself as more than just another one-hit wonder?



Tracklisting
1. Whatcha Say
2. Ridin’ Solo
3. In My Head
4. The Sky’s The Limit
5. What If
6. Love Hangover
7. Encore
8. Fallen
9. Blind
10. Strobelight (Bonus)

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Firstly, J.R. Rotem producing this entire album gives it a level of cohesiveness that isn’t often found in pop and R&B albums, with most artists these days reaching out to each and every hot producer to throw a beat their way, leaving an album that sounds like a compilation. While in a way this is a respectable effort, Rotem’s beats grow increasingly generic even over such a short album, the same whiny preset synths and rolling military snares stretching themselves over most songs, with only drum patterns changing briefly to represent a rock or dance-influenced sound. Even when he attempts to switch it up with an acoustic guitar-driven production on “Fallen” it ultimately ends up sounding like a Stargate clone.

Rotem really shines with more sample-focused works, for example the brilliant interpolation of Imogen Heap’s “Hide & Seek” on the massive number one single “Whatcha Say”, and the use of the melody from Irene Cara’s “What A Feeling” (also known as the song from that scene in Flashdance) on soon-to-be third single “The Sky’s The Limit”. The latter fully updates the sample, turning it into a futuristic modern dance number with airy, rippling arpeggios over some thumping kicks, accompanied by some top notch vocals from Derulo. In contrast though, the original version of “Riding Solo” featured a sample of The Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony”, but it starts to become obvious why it wasn’t approved for clearance when DeRulo drops in with an unusual, annoying vocal.

On that note, DeRulo isn’t the most amazing singer. While this may seem like it would work against him, really it doesn’t matter – the album is completely drenched in autotune, and since every song on the radio currently is too, it really just means he fits in with the rest of the crowd. DeRulo doesn’t need a magnificent voice to get through the songs here, but it makes you wonder what some of them would sound like sung by an R&B singer with much more natural talent and less reliance on autotune, for example Trey Songz, who Derulo actually sounds remarkably similar to. His voice on occasion can be a little grating, sounding like an R&B version of Bizzy Bone on some tracks (the previously mentioned “Riding Solo” in particular), but gives some great performances when the song calls for it (“What If, “Love Hangover”).

Lyrically, this album doesn’t break any new ground – it’s your standard pop fare with a good measure of cliché thrown in (“We could be like Jay and Beyonce, Bonnie and Clyde...”), and only a few songs reach the heights of the main single penned by Sean Kingston (knowing that he wrote both “Whatcha Say” and “Replay”, you question why he didn’t keep them for himself). One of only two songs close to true ballads, “What If” works extremely well, with Derulo pondering potentially finding a soulmate at first sight over what sounds like some actual live instrumentation.

The following song, “Love Hangover” covers the ground of a one night stand in a reasonably novel way, and while “Encore” directly after it isn’t quite as well crafted, it follows on almost as a second act of the same concept, the former acting as “the night before” and the latter as “the morning after” which works decently well. Finally, one of the last songs, “Blind”, doesn’t cover anything new in the adage that love makes you so, but still gets the job done as the other strong ballad on the album.

It was perhaps a good decision to keep this album short at 10 songs (9 if you don’t include the bonus track), as the last couple are the exact point where it starts to grow thin. Many albums these days try to cram as much as possible into their releases and simply leave the listener with a lot of filler, but for the most part this has been avoided on Derulo’s album. What this also does however, whether it be purely by chance and probability or good choices, is ensure that the number of good songs on the album far outweigh the average songs on it – that’s right, there really are no overtly “bad” songs on here.

The 411: Overall, while Jason Derulo’s self titled album may not be particularly groundbreaking, it contains a bevy of radio-ready songs playing off the formula that has been so successful for him in recent times, which should please fans. JR Rotem’s production makes the album stick together considerably well, but listeners might grow tired of hearing the same synths and snares on every song. With quite a few great pop songs and nothing on the album that can truly be labeled as “bad”, Derulo has done well on his debut to distance himself from the stigma of being a “one hit wonder” - whether he can go above and beyond this is something that remains to be seen, however.

Final Score:  7.0   [ Good ]