Joss Stone (EMI)
The quality that first marked out 16-year-old debutante Joss Stone as someone worth watching was her rare and unusual habit of playing it straight, of singing rather than oversinging. Three albums later, she’s lost her restraint.
The clumsy Colour Me Free! is defined not by the half-cooked soul backing band but by Stone’s near-constant, desperate-to-impress warbling. Oh, and by that extraordinary cover, ugly enough to drive listeners to download.
WILL FULFORD-JONES
