Review:
Tata Young is a Thai artist known for ‘Sexy, Naughty, Bitchy’ and ‘Dhoom’, both of which came with the unwitting ‘best before’ date. Her third album in English, not unexpectedly, is stale on arrival. Each of the dance songs here sound like a poor attempt to copy either Beyoncé or Rihanna.
It fails in doing this because for three reasons – the songwriters aren’t as good; Young, apart from having a lesser voice, is too callow for the big leagues; and there are no big guests. However, the music is mostly listenable and sometimes is halfway to catchy.
Opener ‘Ready For Love’ is a finely-produced all-out dance song which gives the album some punch early on. However, the tightly-structured song lacks the magic a lead single should have. Also, Young’s singing sounds learnt rather than felt, and is unconvincing throughout the album.
On ‘Mission Is You’, these problems are less noticeable as the song itself is clumsily amateurish. The beats rule the track and feel like they were inserted to rescue the song from becoming a total disaster.
In ‘Burning Out’, she sounds like Britney Spears in her younger days. The well-written ballad gets its motion from a rippling piano tune that is the first truly good thing about the album. The other ballads (‘My Bloody Valentine’, ‘Words Are Not Enough’) are also better than the dance numbers, but this is not to say that Young should change up and exclusively focus on ballads. Her voice is unfelt throughout, but it just so happens that the ballads written for the album are more tuneful than anything else.
Take ‘Ugly’, for example, which features a beat straight out of the Dr. Dre notebook. It has Young singing in a goofy voice and is probably one of the biggest turn offs of the year. That is until you hear ‘Shine Like A Superstar’, the very next song, an unoriginal tune that has probably been seeing the trash can since Boney M released its first album.
But, it’s Tata Young and you shouldn’t be surprised by a few poor songs. I wouldn’t suggest you buy it, but strictly viewed as Thai pop, it’ll do.
