Leona Lewis: If You Want The Old Mariah Back...Here's An Acceptable Substitute

It would be very easy to dismiss British singer Leona Lewis as pop product, because...well, that's exactly what she is. Discovered on Simon Cowell's U.K. show "X Factor" and signed to Clive Davis's J Records, you couldn't find a better setup to deliver the next big pop diva. Add in the fact that Lewis is a strikingly pretty young woman with some serious lung-power. You pretty much know where this one is going...

Lewis' debut album, Spirit is pure manufactured pop, which probably makes it sound worse than it actually is. Truth be told, it's not an awful album, and there are enough earworms here to almost guarantee repeated listens. However, it's very easy to listen to this album and mentally flash back to divas of old-well, one diva in particular. Mariah Carey.

While plenty of other reviews of Spirit have made mention of the numerous resemblances between the two divas, let me spell this out for you: if Mariah had stayed the course that was set out by former boss/ex-husband Tommy Mottola and not turned into a hip-hop diva who scared her older-housewife-who's-scared-of-urban-minorities audience away, this is EXACTLY what she'd sound like today. She's even got the super-high dog-whistle vocal trick that Mariah liked to show off back in the day.

There's a mixture of sounds here, but it all doubles back to relatively safe pop with a hint of soul. The uptempo tracks have a bit of synth-poppy goodness with just a trickle of hip-hop edge, but they're hooky and lyrically safe enough for adult-contemporary radio. Meanwhile, the ballads (which sink this album almost into unlistenable territory) are melodramatic goop not heard since the glory days of Celine Dion a decade or so ago.

One thing I will say in Leona's defense is that she can definitely belt one out. However, most of the good songs here succeed despite her vocal pyrotechnics. Credit an extensive team of songwriters and producers ranging from D-league boy bander Jesse McCartney to former Color Me Badd member Sam Watters, Norwegian production team Stargate and R&B titans Ne-Yo and Akon. Initial offering Bleeding Love offers an interesting lyric and a great hook with the most forceful percussion I've ever heard on a pop ballad, while Forgive Me glides along on the same peppy sound that guided Gwen Stefani's "The Sweet Escape" (Akon produced both songs). I'm You, meanwhile, is a pleasant beat ballad whose smooth harmonies and easygoing tempo owes more than a little debt to Mary J. Blige's "Be Without You" (which itself had a strong resemblance to Mariah's "We Belong Together").

Notice a pattern? Almost every song on this album sounds like something else that's been popular within the past 3 or 4 years. Take a Bow swipes a song title from Madonna and it's musical background from Justin Timberlake's "Cry Me a River", while the Stargate production Angel utilizes the acoustic guitar/handclaps framework that has become the production team's trademark (see Beyonce's "Irreplaceable", Chris Brown's "With You", etc.). The songs themselves are meticulously crafted, but it sounds to my ears like these songs were crafted with only maximum radio exposure in mind and not an inch of soul or creative inspiration.

Which brings me to my next point-well, two points, actually. First point is the major thing that separates Leona from early-period Mariah. Mariah wrote almost every word that passed through those vocal chords. Leona only gets a co-write on one of this album's 13 tracks, taking away somewhat from any authenticity this album might have. Not saying you *have* to write to make a good record, but there's no sense of identification for Leona on any of these songs. She merely sounds like a technically good singer singing decent songs.

Oh yeah, my other point. The ballads here are almost uniformly awful. Footsteps in the Sand is a textbook example of a big pop ballad, complete with a key change and a choir at the end of the song. Hearing this reminded me of why I wanted to stab myself back in the Nineties whenever Mariah's "Hero" came on the radio. The Avril Lavigne-penned I Will Be (which sounds like all of Avril's other retch-inducing ballads) and a completely unnecessary cover of The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face (seriously, does EVERYONE need to cover this damn song?) provide ample evidence that any sane listener should steer clear any time the tempo slows on this album.

While I'm certainly no hater of pop music, even the pop artists that I enjoy have some semblance of a personality. Spirit doesn't do much more than prove that Leona Lewis is a vocally gifted cipher. While you'll snap your fingers to a few of the more uptempo offerings here, nothing (besides maybe Bleeding Love, which was an inspired choice as a first single) sticks to the ribs. Unless you pine for the glory days of the mid-Nineties power divas, or dream of Whitney (before Bobby) or Mariah (before guest rappers and thigh-slit skirts), I'd say you could probably do without this album.

Spirit by Leona Lewis
Released 2008 on Syco/J Records
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Track Listing: Bleeding Love/Better In Time/I Will Be/I'm You/Forgive Me/Misses Glass/Angel/The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face/Yesterday/Whatever It Takes/Take a Bow/Footsteps in the Sand/Here I Am