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Product Description
Review
Steadily rising Brit-soul teenager Dionne Bromfield - currently 15 years old - would be wise to study the career path of Joss Stone, who broke into the mainstream at the age of 16 with 2003's The Soul Sessions. Study it, carefully, and then walk in the opposite direction for a few albums. For while Stone's a multi-million-selling artist, her catalogue to date is a classic example of diminishing returns. Her second set, 2004's Mind Body & Soul, diluted the singer's natural grit for a mainstream-pleasing pop-soul sound to a chorus of general indifference, and 2007's Introducing... couldn't commercially compete with Amy Winehouse's all-conquering Back to Black, released five months earlier, despite expert production from Raphael Saadiq. And the less said about her final disc for EMI, 2009's ironically drab Colour Me Free!, the better.
LP1 represents something of a rebirth, though - like its title isn't a clue - and is certainly a better collection than the pair immediately preceding it. Here, Stone has full control over what material makes the cut, and she's undeniably in an upbeat mood as a result. Recorded in Nashville alongside Dave Stewart (the pair comprise two-fifths of weird-on-paper supergroup SuperHeavy, with Mick Jagger, Damian Marley and A.R. Rahman), and reportedly completed in just six days, its rough-and-ready feel is several post-production miles away from the major label gloss layered onto to the singer's mid-00s sets. There's less purring here; instead, Stone adopts a one-take-style approach to her performances, channelling the old-school rock-and-soul swagger of Tina Turner, and the results - while mixed - are certainly a lot more engaging than the Auto-Tuned masses. The inconsistencies are actually fairly endearing, cracks allowing the human at the heart of these songs to be glimpsed.
The arrangements vary incredibly, too. Karma rides a slithering funk bassline, while the following Don't Start Lying to Me Now could have been beamed in from Broadway, albeit via Music Row; Drive All Night is a late-night soul ballad with a rare understated vocal, and Somehow is a summery stomp-along that deserves better than its top-50-in-Luxembourg chart success. Inevitably, this produces a fairly incoherent single-sitting experience - and Stone's pussy-cat-one-minute, lioness-the-next attitude can become tiring (what does this girl want, exactly?). But she's one of this country's most gifted singers, and when she shines the effect is positively blinding.
LP1 is no successor to The Soul Sessions. It's too loose, too unkempt to promote its maker back up to pop's uppermost leagues. Stone packs all the power you expect, but her control misfires enough for some of these tracks to never quite click as they might. Ultimately this is more of a feeler release than a comeback proper; a testing toe-in-the-water affair to ascertain what interest there is in this once-feted, soon-damned artist. Turns out there's enough to warrant another, albeit more focused, turn from the Dover-born, Devon-based pop-rock-cum-funk-soul chameleon. As for Bromfield: if she can side-step the awkward third and awful fourth LPs and skip straight to the compelling-in-places fifth, she'll be just fine.
--Mike Diver
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Product Description
(2011 'Surfdog') (40:13/10) Songs, hingehauchter Soul, mal funky, mal balladesque, mit Bluessprenkeln und viel Intensität. Schön
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
It's not odd that Joss Stone titled her fifth album "LP1", since the young English soul singer does seem to be resetting the clock.
Not only is the record her first through her own Stone'd Records imprint, but it's also a stylistic step forward.
"LP1" has bolder blues-rock and country undertones, and those platforms elevate the originality of Stone's raw talents.
Dave Stewart produced "LP1" and navigated Stone through a course of guitar rock and piano balladry (the two also duet on the quaint bonus track, "Picnic for Two", and are in the band SuperHeavy with Mick Jagger).
The allegorical "Newborn" shows Stone growing as a writer as well as a singer. With her rich tone that is cut with a bit of rasp, Stone has the ability to inhabit songs the way good actors create characters.
For example, after the prayerful good will of "Newborn", Stone convincingly turns on her sneer for "Karma'" without a hint of contradiction: this is simply an artist at work.
But Stone's wild-child approach can backfire, as it does on the torchy "Last One to Know", which simply gets away from her.
But on "LP1", Stone mostly imbues her songs with passion and energy.
After an opening salvo of soul-rock numbers, she slows the tempo and works through the knotted emotional tangles of "Drive All Night", "Cry Myself to Sleep", and "Somehow", songs where joys and dangers blur into hazy yearning and questionable outcomes.
"LP1" is full of rough-and-tumble songs, but it's elegant in its aspirations. K. Burns
Not only is the record her first through her own Stone'd Records imprint, but it's also a stylistic step forward.
"LP1" has bolder blues-rock and country undertones, and those platforms elevate the originality of Stone's raw talents.
Dave Stewart produced "LP1" and navigated Stone through a course of guitar rock and piano balladry (the two also duet on the quaint bonus track, "Picnic for Two", and are in the band SuperHeavy with Mick Jagger).
The allegorical "Newborn" shows Stone growing as a writer as well as a singer. With her rich tone that is cut with a bit of rasp, Stone has the ability to inhabit songs the way good actors create characters.
For example, after the prayerful good will of "Newborn", Stone convincingly turns on her sneer for "Karma'" without a hint of contradiction: this is simply an artist at work.
But Stone's wild-child approach can backfire, as it does on the torchy "Last One to Know", which simply gets away from her.
But on "LP1", Stone mostly imbues her songs with passion and energy.
After an opening salvo of soul-rock numbers, she slows the tempo and works through the knotted emotional tangles of "Drive All Night", "Cry Myself to Sleep", and "Somehow", songs where joys and dangers blur into hazy yearning and questionable outcomes.
"LP1" is full of rough-and-tumble songs, but it's elegant in its aspirations. K. Burns
Format:Audio CD
When she came out, Joss was about 15 years old and that made her be seen as another teen pop singer even if she had that extraordinary and soulful voice and covered White Stripes and Aretha Franklin. To this day a lot of people still think she's a product of the music business but they couldn't be more wrong. In every record post-Mind Body and Soul, she tries to tell us she wants to be free and LP1 may be the one she really meant to make since the beginning. It sounds unpolished and it's obvious that it was made very quickly but that is exactly what Joss wanted. No record label would let her be this free. She oversings, she is corny at times but most of all, through every single second of this album, she does what she wants and she likes it. I wish every album was this heartfelt. I still prefer Colour Me Free (her 2009 release) though but this one is a summer record that may not be massive or a chart-topper but it's definetely worth listening to. Best tracks for me: Drive All Night, Somehow, Karma.
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
"LP1" marks the third successive album from Joss Stone where she's attempting to hit the restart button on her career, to usher in a new beginning for the neo-soul diva or, better yet, find the right setting for her considerable gifts.
This journey began with 2007's splashy modern R&B set "Introducing Joss Stone", a makeover she rebelled against on her major-label kiss-off "Colour Me Free", and now that she's truly independent, she's aligned with Eurythmics' Dave Stewart for "LP1", returning to the classicism of her earliest work.
There is a difference.
Stewart is naturally reluctant to present Stone in a strictly soul setting: R&B is the foundation, but he dabbles in tight funk, folk, blues, Euro-rock, and modernist pop, giving "LP1" just enough elasticity so it breathes and just enough color so it doesn't seem staid.
Then, there's Stone herself. She may still have a tendency to over-sell her songs, but she doesn't sound like she is patterning herself after her idols. She's developing her own style, somewhere between classic soul and the pyrotechnics of modern divas, her settings leaning toward the former and her phrasing the latter.
"LP" doesn't always achieve a balance between the two extremes, not to the extent Stone and Stewart desires, as some of the ballads are a little formless and some of the funk a little too restricted, while some of Joss' posturing is a little affected, but it has more moments that work than anything she's done since her actual debut in 2003.
If this winds up being the first album of many that mine this style, "LP1" will serve its purpose well. S. T. Erlewine
This journey began with 2007's splashy modern R&B set "Introducing Joss Stone", a makeover she rebelled against on her major-label kiss-off "Colour Me Free", and now that she's truly independent, she's aligned with Eurythmics' Dave Stewart for "LP1", returning to the classicism of her earliest work.
There is a difference.
Stewart is naturally reluctant to present Stone in a strictly soul setting: R&B is the foundation, but he dabbles in tight funk, folk, blues, Euro-rock, and modernist pop, giving "LP1" just enough elasticity so it breathes and just enough color so it doesn't seem staid.
Then, there's Stone herself. She may still have a tendency to over-sell her songs, but she doesn't sound like she is patterning herself after her idols. She's developing her own style, somewhere between classic soul and the pyrotechnics of modern divas, her settings leaning toward the former and her phrasing the latter.
"LP" doesn't always achieve a balance between the two extremes, not to the extent Stone and Stewart desires, as some of the ballads are a little formless and some of the funk a little too restricted, while some of Joss' posturing is a little affected, but it has more moments that work than anything she's done since her actual debut in 2003.
If this winds up being the first album of many that mine this style, "LP1" will serve its purpose well. S. T. Erlewine
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Joss Stone
Joss is back where she belongs. Back to her soulful self. Loved her early stuff & this is her back at her best.
Published 5 months ago by louise
joss stone lp1
i first heard joss stone on the ALFIE sound track.so i got her back cd,s.all of which is very good.so lp1 is up to her standard. very good album.
Published 8 months ago by Mr. P. J. Upfold
Returning,(kind of) to her roots
She gets a very unfair press does Joss! Plus,here in Britain,her task is that much harder because people constantly harp on about her Brits appearance and fake yankee accent(you... Read more
Published 8 months ago by John Cassidy
A BIT OF SOUL, BLUES AND ROCK
Great album. I purchased this mainly because Dave Stewart produced this album and I wasn't disappointed. Read more
Published 8 months ago by FastHand
Sheer Beauty
This is a beautiful, beautiful album - It has been on in the car and the house nonstop! Elegant yet powerful. It's utterly gorgeous, easy listening, just enjoy it!
Published 9 months ago by Lilly
She's back
Loved her first album and then it was years of rubbish from her....so sad but now it appears, she's seen the light and has released an album of the same vein as her first amazing... Read more
Published 9 months ago by O. Nightingale
won back a fan
I had no idea joss had made another album, and after the last 2 she did I wasnt excited until i youtubed karma and then bought the album. this cd has won me back as a fan. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Colin P. Evans
Surprise! Surprise!
To be honest I approached 'LP1' with extreme caution. Her last
album 2009's 'Colour Me Free' left me cold and I was not terribly
complimentary about it within the context... Read more
album 2009's 'Colour Me Free' left me cold and I was not terribly
complimentary about it within the context... Read more
Published 10 months ago by The Wolf
Superb, Joss
I don't give a damn what pretentious analysis there is - that's hardly what soul is about.
This is just a superb LP.
Thanks, Joss.
This is just a superb LP.
Thanks, Joss.
Published 10 months ago by DevonianDick
Pure Karma
As I'm writing this album review, the song "Karma" is playing in the background. It reminds me of Joss' career so far in a way. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Martina R
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