Due to the recent popularity of certain pop, dance, neo-soul, and novelty acts, I have taken time to ponder the genre sometimes called, "blue-eyed soul." Like any curmudgeon worth his salt, I tend to resist the popularity fast rising stars. I may even deride them for no reason except that they are new and popular. Enter Joss Stone.
I saw a couple of her performances on late night television while she was promoting her most recent album, "Introducing Joss Stone." Her brand of neo-soul was rather captivating--almost too much so. I allowed some time to pass and stumbled across a couple of her videos on an Internet based video service and found myself hooked, so I purchased the album without doing a whole lot of research beforehand. "Introducing Joss Stone" turned out to be quite the purchase and found itself in moderate rotation.
About this time I did some research to find out more about the album and discovered that most of the writing and production was done by Raphael Saddiq (a.k.a.: Raphael Wiggins, Charlie Ray Wiggins). This made it clear that the deep allure of the album was it sounded like one of the lost Tony! Toni! Tone! albums: "Star Kitty's Revenge" (Joi), "Brown Sugar" (D'Angelo), "Lucy Pearl" (Lucy Pearl). I found this a little reassuring that what hooked me on the album was not so much a white girl from the U.K. singing neo-soul, but rather Raphael Saddiq's intoxicating, unique mix of Soul, Rock, Funk, New Jack Swing, and je ne sais quois. After all, the album includes cameos by Lauryn Hill and Common [Sense].
The bottom line on the album is that between Saddiq's music and Joss Stone's sound it is a good listen. It is a little draining to listen to love song after love song, but the music is good enough that you can tune out the words and still enjoy it. As I said before, the album made its way into moderate rotation.
