R&B's latest star delivers a hugely variable debut album, featuring a number of pop winners with massive dance-floor potential, a lot of filler, and a few complete blunders.
At just twenty years of age, Jason Derulo has already written hits for the likes of P. Diddy and Sean Kingston as well as bagging the number one spot in the US and number five here in Ireland with his debut single "Whatcha Say", and its shameless sampling of Imogen Heap. But Derulo's self-titled debut falls into the trap of so many pop albums, putting forward a couple of brilliantly catchy and dance-worthy tunes to get you hooked, and then proceeding to throw drivel at you for the remainder of its 35minute running time.
New single 'In My Head' is perfect club material, mixing contemporary R&B with strong beats and punctuating electric guitar, while 'Encore' begins in a slightly mellower fashion with simple piano, before upping the ante with clattering rhythms and heaving harmonies. Vocally, Derulo's style is quite nasal, even more so when its Auto-Tuned to the max, as it so often is. Hilariously, Derulo insists on introducing himself at the beginning of practically every song, and even occasionally introduces his label, Beluga Heights, and his producer, J.R. Rotem, who seems almost as central to proceedings as Derulo himself, having founded the label and previously produced hits for the likes of Rihanna, Britney, Leona and JLS.
Even so, this album is mostly filler, mainly made up of tawdry ballads. While 'Fallen' actually works quite well, cleverly referencing pop culture couples Jay-Z & Beyonce, Bonnie & Clyde and even Michelle & Barack Obama, 'Blind' is a cheese-ridden affair with hackneyed, done to death lyrics ("Love made me blind, so I couldn't see" etc. Etc.). Derulo really should have considered selling such a song to Westlife, who would undoubtedly have made an enormous hit of it. Depressingly, it gets worse. 'The Sky's The Limit' is a gross reworking of Irene Cara's Flashdance classic 'What A Feeling', merely changing the lyrics and adding some 90s dance vibes.
There's no doubting Jason Derulo knows how to pen a hit single, but this is one of those times when it's better value to just buy the singles, and give the album a miss altogether.
