Album Review: Jordin Sparks - Battlefield

She struck gold with the ball-busting R’n’B power ballad ‘No Air’, a collaboration with the then-unhated Chris Brown, but Jordin Sparks has yet to really make herself a staple of the modern music scene. Her self-titled debut album landed somewhere just above average, and her other two singles – the brilliant ‘Tattoo’ and the likeable ‘One Step At A Time’ – struggled to come anywhere near the success of that duet. So this, her second album, is really where she has to prove her staying power.

The highlight of Battlefield is, without question, the single of the same name. It doesn’t so much push the right buttons as push all the fucking buttons, as undisputed master of the modern power ballad Ryan Tedder (‘Halo’, ‘Bleeding Love’) throws literally everything into a four-minute explosion of 80s arena-style pop-rock to create what is easily one of the best singles of the year. It really is frustrating that in the UK it’s stalled at No11 on three separate occasions, despite selling more than 124,000 copies.

The rest of the album fluctuates between very good and disappointingly average, but there are plenty of potential hits on here to keep Sparks a chart regular for the time being. Opener ‘Walking on Snow’ is a breezy pop gem and on ‘No Parade’ she gets to really show off that glass-shattering voice of hers. Note also the brilliant ball-busting climax of ‘The Cure’, a highlight that’s criminally tucked away at the end of the album. There are a couple of nods to dance here as well, and these are surprisingly successful – the Shannon-sampling ‘S.O.S. (Let The Music Play)’ could do with a bit of tweaking before its forthcoming release as a single, but it’s an enjoyable high-camp stormer nonetheless; and ‘Emergency (911)’ is really quite brilliant, despite a hilariously random phone-dialling sound effect about thirty seconds in.

But unfortunately what weighs Battlefield down is the amount of tracks that, although far from awful, are somewhat underwhelming and fail to make much of an impression. ‘Watch You Go’ and ‘It Takes More’ are a bit forgettable, ‘Faith’ sounds like a cliché-ridden reject from a Leona Lewis album, and ‘Was I The Only One’ is just plain boring. The problem is that the whole album has been based around the avalanche of praise that met ‘Battlefield’ (the title, the general sound) but unfortunately its nearest sound-a-likes just aren’t strong enough. Interviews suggest that the final track listing was whittled down from a total of thirty recorded songs, and perhaps it would have been a better idea to include a couple of ‘No Air’-style R’n’B tunes over half-arsed pop songs that try, but never will, match the perfection of that title track.

That said, despite the handful of forgettable fillers Battlefield is at least an improvement on last year’s début. This is far from a perfect album, but, at just nineteen years old, there’s plenty of time to perfect Project Sparks yet.

3/5