Stone me! (Sorry)
Artiste: Joss Stone
Nationality: British (English)
Album: Mind, body & soul
Year: 2004
Label: Relentless
Genre:Soul
Tracks:
Right to be wrong
Jet lag
You had me
Spoiled
Don't cha wanna ride
Less is more
Security
Young at heart
Snakes and ladders
Understand
Don't know how
Torn and tattered
Killing time
Sleep like a child
Chronological position: Second album
Familiarity: Zero
Interesting factoid:
Initial impression: Sounds more like rock than soul to me! Yay!
Best track(s): Right to be wrong, Jet lag, Spoiled, Security, Sleep like a child
Worst track(s): Killing time, Understand
Comments: There was a time when I took “advantage” of some offer of Cds for a dollar, don't ask me where, but I got a whole fistful of them, and because they were so cheap I plumped for a few I would never normally have bought. Of course, they were cheap because a) they were ripoff pirate copies with grainy covers that looked like the ink had run (which it probably had, or more likely, they'd run out of ink and just gone with the picture they could get) and came in floppy plastic sleeves on CDR discs. Very classy. At any rate, for some reason I can't recall now --- maybe to make up some “buy ten get one free” offer or something --- I went for this one. I've never heard anything by her so I have no idea if I'll like this at all, but it's been gathering dust for years so maybe it's time to blow that dust off and see what's actually underneath the extremely cheap cover. Hell, it may not even play, in which case this review will never get done, but let's have a go anyway.
Well the opener is a nice surprise, sort of blues half-ballad with some gorgeous guitar, and certainly Stone's voice is strong and almost raw, kind of reminds me of a far more restrained and sane Janis Joplin mixed with perhaps elements of Tina Turner. I like
Jet lag too, much more in the soul realm than the first track, then there's pure funk-out in
You had me, a real “diva” song (Oh no she di'nt!), then slow blues in
Spoiled. Kind of hard to pin this lady's style or genre down, and I imagine many rockers will be just as into her music as will those who follow the charts or even the soul aficionados. Something for everyone, really.
Yeah, I really like this. It has a real feeling of heart and reality about it, like it's not just music written to bust the charts open or get people dancing, and even better, Joss seems to write most of her own material, or co-write it with others. She even throws in a reggae effort in
Less is more, and to its credit it doesn't repulse me: I usually hate reggae. Yeah, whatcha gonna do, huh? But this is good! There's even a shot of cool gospel in
Security, though in fairness it does get a little tedious after that, closing well with
Sleep like a child; pity it couldn't maintain the original interest all through, though.
Overall impression: A big surprise, something like opening a box of chocs and expecting them all to be the same filling but finding they're all different. And delicious.
Intention: Must listen to more of her stuff. Now.