tjhassecrets's Full Review: Gotta Tell You by Samantha Mumba
= I don't need you to tell me I'm pretty To make me feel beautiful I don't need you to give me your strength To make me feel I'm strong I've got all of the strength that I need Here inside my own two hands All that I want is your love And respect for who I am What I really need Comes from deep inside of me =
There were a lot of one-hit wonders in the late-1990s, and quite a bit of them were boring or just not special. Sisqo, anybody? And unfortunately for Irish model and singer Samantha Mumba, she falls into this category (at least in the United States). I remember when she first hit the sing with a catchy pop song, but I don't remember anything that happened to her afterward; and this is because her debut record Gotta Tell You is a mind-numbing karaoke disc chock full of non-melodic pop tunes that never really go anywhere. Aside from an awkward David Bowie sample on one of the tracks, there's nothing here that's all that interesting or cool. Samantha Mumba may have a nice and smooth voice, but her material is unmemorable and uncool. An obvious product of the girl-power movement, Gotta Tell You is a sad knock-off of Robyn's debut album mixed with a little 3LW/Cheetah Girls and bad Janet Jackson influence. Production-wise, this album could not sound more generic, featuring some dull harp samples and typical late-90s/early-millennium beats. At the core of it, though, the issue with this album is that almost every song lacks a hook, and isn't all that much better than the albums of Vanessa Hudgens or Raven Symone.
Released in American with eleven flat pop tunes, Gotta Tell You just barely floats on its namesake, a cute and catchy track that is way more enjoyable than anything else on the record. Her voice kind of has an early-Britney vibe with a lot more soul, and before long, this album quickly reminds me of any Spice Girl-- the difference is that the Spice Girls had that something special. With her lack of presence and generally okay deliveries, Samantha Mumba begins to rest on her laurels with the rest of the album, particularly on Feelin' is Right and Don't Need to Tell You I'm Pretty, which are really bad filler songs. While the eponymous lead-single is one that is a nice retro-blast, the ten other songs it comes with range from horrible to mediocre and forgettable. Taking just a little too much from Brandy, Monica, and Kelly Rowland, this chick just does not bring the fire like she probably can, not that she could have really saved any of this material. The Boy features a cameo from will.i.am before he exploded in the mainstream, and he sounds the same as he does now. Perhaps not all that surprisingly, he steals the spotlight.
Always Come Back to Your Love sounds like a hip-pop take on a t.A.T.u. song, and it's almost there in terms of being good, but it never...really goes there. It doesn't push to be that need-to-hear hit single, and the melody is half-baked and played. I cannot possibly diss this album much longer, because there's really not much else to say. Gotta Tell You is built upon mid-tempo tracks that seem to epitomize the late 90s-- in a bad way. Samantha's input on the songwriting is minimal at best, and given the long-list of studio musicians, I'd say she had little to do with this record. But maybe she should have brushed up on her music history before recording the seemingly harmless ballad Never Meant to Be, which is flat out plagiarism: ever hear of a little hit single from the mid-90s called Again by Janet Jackson? Well, apparently, this chick didn't, because the melody is a poorly Xeroxed knock-off. I honestly don't really know why I chose this record to review. About three times, I was going to stop writing this review and scrapping it, because it feels a little derivative. Usually bad albums are fun to trash, but this review was admittedly boring to write, and I couldn't care le--zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...
VERDICT zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
01. Gotta Tell You [4 Stars] 02. Baby, Come Over [2 Stars] 03. The Boy [1 Star] 04. Don't Need to Tell You I'm Pretty [2 Stars] 05. Always Come Back to Love [2.5 Stars] 06. Feelin' Is Right [1 Star] 07. Body II Body [1 Star] 08. What's It Gonna Be [1 Star] 09. Never Meant to Be [-5 Stars] 10. Isn't It Strange [1 Star] 11. Lately [2 Stars]
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