Battlefield [Jive]



?



Jordin Sparks won the “American Idol” Season Six title in 2007 at age 17 and remains the youngest winner to date.



On “Battlefield,” her sophomore CD, Team Jordin nudges the 19-year-old into slightly more grown-up territory, but at the expense of the two things that helped Sparks win “Idol”: her estimable vocal prowess and her ebullient personality.



Contemporary producers including Dr. Luke& T-Pain (“Watch You Go”), Ryan Tedder (“Battlefield”) and Harvey Mason (“Don’t Let It Go to Your Head”) provide generic, formulaic beats and a steady stream of depressing broken-relationship lyrics. Sparks, who famously talked of wearing a purity ring, could be the most unlucky-in-love teen in “Idol” history if her constant songs of heartache are to be believed.



She is certainly unlucky in music, this second time around. This faceless pop/R&B, and a pointless refashioning of the 1983 Shannon hit, “Let the Music Play,” drifts by like weightless sea foam. Only the catchiness of the title track’s hook leaves a small impression. The overproduced songs are also pitched in a key too high for Sparks’ voice, so she winds up sounding thin or desperate, as on the opening “Walking on Snow,” a mediocre soft rocker that sounds like a Kelly Clarkson or Miley Cyrus reject.



Sparks needs to rally better troops and find a voice and style she can call her own. One suggestion: lighten up and sing age-specific material. It has worked for superstar Taylor Swift, and that country-pop songwriter doesn’t have 1/10th the vocal ability Sparks displayed weekly on “Idol.”



—Howard Cohen, Miami Herald