Joss Stone - 'Baby Baby Baby'
Thoughts about Joss Stone:
1: She's living proof that if you take a teenager out of somewhere relatively remote, like Devon (or Louisiana, right Britney?), constantly tell her that she's massively talented, parade her around America in front of film stars, presidents, soul legends etc - all of whom keep telling her she is massively talented - they are going to come back home with their head bent. It would happen to you, it would happen to me, there is simply no way around it.
2: One thing the British are never very keen on are people who seem to have let their experiences of success affect their personality. So even though the head-bending of Joss Stone (which should be the title of her fifth album, in a just world) was totally inevitable, seeing her parade around dressed in a manner which would make a kaleidoscope wince, and talking like a superfly rapper from the southern states of America, is bound to get people's backs up. Again, there's no way around it.
3: Sometimes, even when you are possessed of a true talent (and the debate about whether Joss's voice is empirically soulful or just soulful for a teenager from Devon will run and run) it's not necessary to demonstrate the full extent of this talent all the time. You don't buy a Porsche and drive it with everywhere with your foot to the floor (well, you don't for very long, anyway), and you don't buy a toaster and cram it full of crumpets, bread, muffins, bagels and buns and attempt to cook the lot in one go.
Naturally, you can't expect a teenager (particularly a teenager with a fame-bent head) to have learned this lesson yet, so it's up to us, the grown-ups, to be forgiving when Joss vocally stuffs a hot crossed bun in with her morning Hovis. She'll learn.
4: Actually, judging by this performance, it seems she's already on the right track. It does contain some of the trademark Stone huffing and puffing which always strikes a massively false note (or a whole series of them), because she never sounds like she means it. But for large portions of the song she manages to keep to the melody rather well, gets the song across, backs out of the way to let her backing singers have their call-and-response moments and generally acts like she is there to serve the music, rather than the other way around.
5: Doesn't she scrub up well? By rights this performance (from a Fashion Rocks Prince's Trust concert last year) would be the official video, seeing as she looks a lot better without all the eye-melting, hyper-saturated technicolor gubbins.
6: That is all the thoughts on Joss Stone I have for now.
Download: Out now
CD Released: January 14th
(Fraser McAlpine)
Comments
I'm so glad you wrote this! I've been so annoyed by Joss Stone with all her fake Americanism but you're right; how can we expect anything else from her when she has been put on such a high pedestal. She would be super-human (like Leona Lewis!) if she managed to keep her feet on the ground. I just hope she manages to come back down to earth sometime!
I'd thought it had been agreed that Joss Stone's fifth alBUM was going to be called "Straight Outta Cullumpton"?
[Haha! Steve, you win, at everything! - Fraser]