- Label
- Syco
- Release date
- 16th November 2009
- Genre
- Soul/R&B
- Buy this album
- Order CD
Simon Cowell is the most unapologetic of karaoke-enabling music Machiavellis but even he must have stifled an ironic grimace at the aptness of Leona Lewis's second album title.
Following on from The X Factor 2006 winner's six-million-selling debut, Spirit, Echo is an exact replica of its predecessor, down to every empty gesture and tremulous warble. There has not been a more excrutiatingly obvious album concocted this year.
The formula is this: Leona breathes a pained, hesitant opening. Ponderous piano or sweeping strings up the ante. The tension rises, drums explode and Leona caterwauls a sub-Mariah chorus about how she is standin' tall/no heartbroken victim/strong in love, etc.
Six million pop fans can't be wrong (oh really?) and Leona sure can sing, but this glossy, efficient clump of power ballads ultimately fails because at its heart lies a huge, gaping hole where a personality should be. Sound and fury, signifying nothing.
More to try:
Alexandra Burke: Overcome
Whitney Houston: I Look To You
Mariah Carey: Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel
