Blog

(Top)
Joss Stone
Leona Lewis
Beverley Knight

(Middle)
Lady GaGa
Janet Jackson
Beyoncé
Amerie

(Bottom)
Wale
Mr Hudson
Ryan Leslie

I can't believe I bought my copy of a Joss Stone album! A few days ago I read some articles claiming that Joss' latest CD, Colour Me Free, is her best effort to date and then took this opportunity to give her music yet another try. In fact, this album also suffers the same problem that was the reason why I didn't like her music in the past, but at the same time, Joss' vocals seem to sound most natural ever and are fitting to the music, which is quite natural and laid-back in a not-trying-too-hard way, too. I'd say I like this one.

"Queen Of British RnB" Beverley Knight has returned to the scene with the modern urban sounds of her latest effort, 100%, which was released this September and is the first release on her own independent label, Hurricane Records. Even though I definitely love the pure southern soul/gospel approach of the previous album Music City Soul, I heartily welcome her back to the mainstream RnB scene with this quality music. A basic texture of this album is actually quite modern, but songs like "Turned To Stone," "Bare" and most notably "Soul Survivor" with legendary Chaka Khan are, on the other hand, more classic-soul-oriented and also potential to appeal to the audience who just love Music City Soul among Beverley's catalogue.

As I wrote about it, multi-talented singer/songwriter/producer/businessman Ryan Leslie released his self-titled singing debut album earlier this year, and then this November, he has already put out his sophomore effort, Transition, again with little promotion and no hit single. Even though a basic direction of this album doesn't seem to be really different from that of the previous one, this time around R-Les' sound productions seem to be funkier and sometimes even utilize a live band. The fusion of the elegant songcraft and edgy funk sound on "You're Not My Girl" is definitely the highlight of the whole album, but other tracks like "Something That I Like," "Zodiac" and "I Choose You" are great, too.

After the unfavorable sales of her latest studio album Discipline and therefor the departure from the Island Def Jam group, Janet Jackson just released her first "all-time" greatest-hits album (except the pre-Control era) last week. Needless to say, the two-disc album is filled with a bunch of the groundbreaking hit songs, especially from the five essential albums from Control to All For You, and also some rare/must-have tracks including "Diamonds" with Herb Alpert, "The Best Things In Life Are Free" with Luther Vandross, "Scream" with Michael Jackson and most importantly, the newly-recorded track "Make Me." The one and only new track is produced by Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins, who's also responsible for "Feedback," but this time he's done a better job for Janet than that and I hope to see them doing more songs like this in the future. (It's reported that Janet has signed again to A&M and now is recording for the new studio album with Darkchild.)