SonyBMG
Pop, 2007

I didn’t watch the season of The X-Factor UK in which Leona Lewis won, so I don’t know anything about her apart from the fact that I find her version of A Moment Like This much more enjoyable than one Kelly Clarkson’s. That, people, is a good reason enough for me to pick up her debut CD.

Ms Lewis has a pretty good voice that drips with soul and sass, but Spirit, unfortunately, is such a bland collection of tunes that I am hard-pressed to remember much about the songs here. The exception to this is the lead single Bleeding Love which is very catchy indeed, although I would caution anyone who is tempted to count the number of times she sings “bleeding” in the song against doing so. The “da-da-da da-da-da” parts in Whatever It Takes are very catchy too, but the rest of the song is bland. If I have to pick my favorite song, it will be The Best You Never Had, but that’s because I like the chorus very much.

Indeed, I’m surprised that the presence of hot-shot names like Ne-Yo and Damon Dash can result in such a bland collection of formulaic power ballads and uptempo R&B tunes. Perhaps dear Simon Cowell pocketed the bulk of the budget allocated to the production of this CD, thus resulting in the obvious reject-bin tunes in this CD? I don’t know, but I do know that this boring and personality-free album is definitely unworthy of Ms Lewis’ beautiful voice.