Review: Natasha Bedingfield – Unwritten

Another offspring of the “sister-of”-syndrome. With only one solid hit in the open, it is, as always, an exciting experience to find out if the whole album is filled with potential hits, are that you’ve heard the only one already.
The album is filled with poppy songs and a few ballads. The positive thing is her tendency to play with the tempo on most of her songs adds a layer of freshness to it.
The bad things however, overshadow the good stuff. For instance (having seen some pretty admirable live performances), her voice is powerful, but on the slower ballads, the timbre is unstable. Her voice is shaky when reaching the higher tones. Then there’s the freshness that wears off after the second or third round of listening to the album. Also, the hooks on the other songs don’t have the same positive spin as These Words. They even lean to the negative side, making longevity an impossibility. The fourth round of listening will be a trying task. Combined with the uninteresting topics and lyrics, some nine songs will end in the trash bin very soon. (The tenth being the title song, which might have a shot at the charts, but not reaching the same heights as her first hit). This deserves a grade just for the effort.5-.