Album Reviews |

Jason Derulo

Everything Is 4 6 ( 2015 )
Want to Want Me / Cheyenne / Get Ugly / Pull Up / Love Like That / Painkiller / Broke / Try Me / Love Me Down / Trade Hearts / X2CU

Until this past weekend, I had never sat in somebody else's house and saw Karaoke. People young and old, occasionally very old and not really the kind of person you would expect to like modern, dance pop. Jason Derulo is modern dance-pop and the kind of person you would expect on a hit-filled, 21st century karaoke disc. The first three songs all sound like hit songs for the streaming age, packed full of multiple producers and vocals that could almost be anybody. Sex sells, and Jason Derulo has his fans for that very reason. Song 4 on album '4' is 'Pull Up', after three possible modern chart-pop songs where Jason, like many other would be Derulo's around the world wants to be Michael Jackson.'Pull Up' is a song almost entirely lacking in rhythmic or lyrical charm, this insistence on singing about sex becoming almost entirely charmless. 'Why don't we do it' sings Derulo, on the apparently moody 'Love Like That', one of five songs on 'Everything Is 4' featuring the dreaded 'feat.' in the song title. Multiple singers, co-writers and producers make a lot of modern pop lightweight - at least the fabled Motown hit factory had a core group of singers and writers. These days, give almost anybody - let's say Olly Murs - access to the same producers and songwriters Jason Durulo has here and the results would be practically identical. The artist hardly matters anymore, and that's a crying shame.

Talking of Motown, who talked Stevie Wonder into appearing on 'Broke'? I mean, Stevie, I know you are blind, but you really aren't stupid. Hit factory Jennifer Lopez pops up on 'Try Me', full of yeah yeahs and mind-ying and whooas and a bunch of lyrics that are so light and meaningless they may as well be non-language - invented language. This is how we cross geographic borders kids - sing like you have the English level of an eight year old. 'Love Me Down' opens with a neat little guitar line that gives me an idea. Nile Rogers is having a second-wind - would love to see what he could add to the Durolo universe - actual dance ability, perhaps?

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this page last updated 27/03/16