Jordin Sparks - Jordin Sparks Review
Posted by Mitch Michaels on 11.20.2007
The latest American Idol hits shelves, but will she deliver?
My Story
Another year and another “American Idol”. I actually watched this past season of A.I. in its entirety, and I think this year had some of the best pure singing talents the shows has ever seen. Runner-up Blake Lewis was probably the most innovative contestant yet and finalists Melinda Doolittle and LaKisha Jones were amazing vocalists. Amidst all of that was teenager Jordin Sparks, who, while a little big compared to the diminutive Ryan Seacrest, was probably the most marketable (re: attractive) among the serious contestants. She had great voice and, midway through the competition, began to show a real flare for showmanship.
When Jordin won, I wasn’t surprised, but I wasn’t exactly blown away either. Despite the fact that she was good, I never really thought of her as great. Will her debut album give us a better idea of what this girl can do?
Her Story
Jordin Sparks was born in 1989 and brought up in Phoenix, Arizona, the daughter of an ex-NFL player. She spent the latter half of her high school years being home schooled as her parents wanted her to focus more on a singing career. At that point, young Jordin was showing a flair for all sorts of performance arts.
When Jordin auditioned for “American Idol”, she was far from an amateur. Among the contests she had competed and performed well in were 2004’s Music In The Rockies, “America’s Most Talented Kids” TV show and Coca Cola’s Rising Star competition, which she won. As a teenager,s he had also performed with rocker Alice Cooper (for a Christmas special) and toured with notable Christian artist Michael W. Smith. At the age of fourteen, Sparks put together a short EP titled For Now, which she self-released.
In 2006, Jordin auditioned for the fifth season of “American Idol”, but did not make it very far. She did, however, win a local contest called “Arizona Idol”, a competition affiliated with A.I. With her victory, she auditioned again in 2007 and made it to the finals.
With performances of songs by Tracy Chapman (“Give Me One Reason”), Shirley Bassey (“I (Who Have Nothing)”) and No Doubt (“Hey Baby”), Sparks impressed judges and audiences weekly. By May, Sparks found herself in the Final 2 and had never been a Bottom 3 vote getter. On May 23rd, 2007, Jordin Sparks was named Season 6’s American Idol.
Her first single, “This Is My Now”, was rushed out immediately. The song reached #15 on the US charts, a low for “American Idol” single standards, as all but one of the previous A.I. “winner songs” had reached #1 (Ruben Studdard’s “Flying Without Wings” peaked at #2). A self-titled, digital-only EP followed, which featured “This Is My Now” and other Jordin performances from the show. The Jordin Sparks EP reached #2 on the Digital Album charts.
Following the TV show, Sparks toured the country with other finalists on the traditional “American Idol Live!” tour, during which she recorded the bulk of her debut album. The lead single, “Tattoo”, was released in late August and reached #18 on the Hot 100.
The Album
On November 20, 2007, J-Records released Jordin Sparks, the debut album by “American Idol” season 6 winner Jordin Sparks. The album is available on CD and digitally. It includes the bonus track “This Is My Now”. Retail exclusives contain bonus tracks, including “Worth The Wait” (Wal*Mart).
The Band: 6.5
Jordin Sparks: vocals
Wow, where the hell did this come from. The strangest thing about Jordin Sparks’ debut is that it’s titled Jordin Sparks, as it sounds nothing like the girl we got to know on “American Idol”. You may think, how could a 17-year old girl have developed her own style, but you have to realize that this is a girl with nearly a decade in show business. Never has the hand of a studio and producers been so obvious. It’s almost like Jordin Sparks was written entirely without its namesake, simply to the orders that “we have a young black girl, we want an R&B record”.
For her part, Jordin attempts to inject her own strengths into these tracks, namely her amazing vocal range, but the arrangement are either bland or borderline oppressive. As seasoned as she may be, Sparks isn’t ready to rise above any sort of production flaws, and she gets lost on this album. Or rather, her ability is lost, because the producers leave her mostly bland and confused vocals front and center.
To put it simply, Jordin Sparks reveals the flaw in the “American Idol” machine, as the producers and execs put on this album were too lazy to tailor it to meet Jordin’s actual strengths. Instead, they forced her inside a string of twelve boxes and hoped for the best, simply because they’d paid the bucks for some beats and ballads and, by God, that’s what they were going to get.
The Songs: 5.0
1. Tattoo
2. One Step At A Time
3. No Air (feat. Chris Brown)
4. Freeze
5. Shy Boy
6. Now You Tell Me
7. Next To You
8. Just For The Record
9. Permanent Monday
10. Young And In Love
11. See My Side
12. God Loves Ugly
Jordin Sparks kicks off with the spunky, if underwhelming, lead single “Tattoo”. “Tattoo” is a pretty standard pop single, referencing the ink craze, and could just as easily be by artists from Pink to Kelly Clarkson. It’s the closest to rock that we get on this record, though, as much of it is devoted to R&B, despite the fact that Jordin wasn’t really an R&B singer throughout “American Idol”. This is never more evident than on the cringeworthy “Shy Boy”, which attempts to make the 17-year old singer sound sexy but instead sounds more like reading lines.
There are a few moments when Jordin sounds good. The verses on “One Step At A Time” come out nice, as does the Chris Brown collaboration “No Air”, which has single written all over it. Unfortunately, that’s one of the few songs that won’t leave you scratching your head at some point. Take for instance “Young And In Love”, where Jordin is lost among artificial beats and background singles, coming up for air long enough to make you wonder: will this young girl, all drive and ambition and singing contests, ever actually BE “Young and In Love”?
When this album isn’t attempting to make Jordin Sparks the next Beyoncé, it’s capitalizing on another “A.I.” hallmark: the big ballad. Jordin does OK singing on these songs, but the songs themselves are so thrown together that it’s hard to enjoy any sort of presentation. Never is this truer than on the horrendous album closer “God Loves Ugly”, where Sparks sings “God loves ugly/He doesn’t see the way I see/God loves ugly and turns it into something beautiful”. God must be the only one who loves this album, then.
The 411: Jordin Sparks is probably the first major crack in the “American Idol” machine, as it does nearly everything wrong. The album doesn’t focus on the strengths of its singer, instead revealing how inexperienced young Jordin is, and it refuses to mold into Jordin’s own style, forcing her to be sexy and danceable in places, qualities that she really never revealed on the TV show. Everyone involved with this record should be fired, from the producers to the label execs to the songwriters, and Jordin should be given an environment to nurture her talent instead of exploiting her for what she may and may not be.
