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With the fast-maturing Stone gaining greater control of her powerful pipes and a recent breakup adding to the underlying sexual tension while stoking the creative fire, the craftily reconstituted 70s R&B concept works exceptionally well.
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The record is low on saccharine balladry, high on rhythm protein.
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BillboardSaadiq's production is brimming with horns and seriously in-the-pocket rhythm sections, but there are also enough hip-hop touches and contemporary arrangements to keep the tracks in the now. [24 Mar 2007]
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Introducing Joss Stone has the sound of an artist who is beginning to go places, not of one coming from somewhere or standing still.
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Mojo[Introducing] contains her best songs and most relaxed, assured performances. [May 2007, p.112]
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If not a beginning to end classic album, it's full of potential classic tracks.
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While there are a couple of moments of over-singing and vocal affectation, Introducing Joss Stone is a dramatic leap forward creatively, without straying too far from the sound that made Stone famous.
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The sonic texture is compelling, yet few tracks have melodies that stick; these are more grooves than songs.
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It’s a shame that Stone and Saadiq fall for the name-dropping approach to making records; inserted like ad-breaks, the guests are easily the worst thing on the album, giving a strong whiff of one of those horrible kitchen-sink-and-rolodex stinkers in the middle of a really very good, if conservative, soul record.
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This is her best album to date.
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For the most part, Stone employs her remarkable instrument with focus and nuance on Introducing, and the result is an album full of solid pop-wise R&B.
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For all her undoubted talent - and only the unreasonably churlish would deny she can sing up a storm - she now seems trapped awkwardly between two diametrically opposing cultures.
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BlenderThere's nothing remotely original about any of it. [Apr 2007, p.111]
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UncutThe over-shiny, repetitive beats and the carefree, happy-skippy persona soon palls. [Apr 2007, p.120]
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It's the rare album that values vocal talent and production prowess with equal measure—and, for the most part, it succeeds.
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This introduction isn't all that different than her debut, since it still presents a promising vocalist instead of a vocalist who's fulfilled her promise.
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At times... "Introducing" sounds like the long-sought missing link between neo-soul and future-soul.... When "Introducing" falters, however, it's done in by the twin killers of modern soul: too much sex, not enough melody.
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Q MagazineThese songs are insufficiently distinctive and there is a surfeit of ballast in need of jettisoning. [Apr 2007, p.108]
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The fit is often clumsy, over-laden with strings, backing voices and metronomic beats, but there are enough stand-outs to keep our Joss in airplay.
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In buying in so emphatically into a US pop/soul template, Stone has effectively erased what made her so intriguing in the first place.
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Her makeover seems too urban for her Starbucks-mom base and too retro for urban radio. [19 Mar 2007]
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She has talent to burn, but rather than challenge herself, Stone has chosen to throw herself on a multi-million dollar bullet train to the centre of mediocrity.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 30 out of 39
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Mixed: 8 out of 39
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Negative: 1 out of 39
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Nov 25, 2021Joss Stone's voice is breathtaking!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Nov 25, 2021Joss Stone most personal album yet is also one of her best work, I love her voice so much
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Nov 24, 2021Joss Stone's most personal album yet, she does an amazing job here and her voice is still marvelous