Since she won the X Factor in 2008, and released her album ‘Overcome’ there was a unanimous form of agreement that Alexandra Burke had everything in her to become the next big thing since the show had Leona Lewis. When Alexandra Burke parted ways with SyCo and pushed back her album to work on new material which were much more up tempo we were equally excited. So yes, the singer’s second album, includes many up tempo dance songs, but her strongest efforts lay in the few ballads and few stand outs on the album.
Dance diva are the first words coming up when ‘Heartbreak on Hold’, the title track bursts out of the stereo. What a belter, what a voice! Alex’ vocals are spot on during the intro of the song and simply oozes talent before it slides in a rather generic dance tune, which empowers the album unfortunately. Don’t get us wrong, the album sounds very chart friendly, perhaps a tad too chart friendly and produced for ‘anno 2012′. the singles ‘Elephant’ produced by Erick Morillo and latest single ‘Let It Go’ which seems to have left radio stations unimpressed so far, despite being the better track of the two, are the strongest dance tracks while ‘Oh La La’ is the one we want to forget the quickest . What were you thinking Alex. Yet not all is lost though, ‘This Love Will Survive’ sounds similar to the ‘Dance Love Pop’ era by Swedish idols winner Agnes and comes as a refreshment in the line up of so far, as ‘Fire’ returns back to that same generic mixture of dance, drum and bass, and pop music.
Standing out between all the up tempo dance tunes, is ‘Between the Sheets’ , the first ballad on the album. It’s very Toni Braxton, a style suiting Alexandra the best, which we already knew from her X Factor period. In the current pop climate where there’s an obvious lack of powerful chanteuses Alex has all the potential to make it, especially with those very strong vocals which are now unfortunately being wasted on a way too predictable, generic album of dance music. The few stand outs, like the big band track ‘Love Too Much’ , ‘Sitting On Top of The World’ and ‘What Money Can’t Buy’ show all the signs of a grand dame waiting to get in the limelight, she deserves. Occasionally, less is more.
”Heartbreak on Hold” the new album by Alexandra Burke is now available through iTunes, Amazon, Spotify and any other music distributor.
Watch the video for Alexandra’s Burke latest single, ‘Let it Go’, below
