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BUY THE CD
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Natasha Bedingfield first grabbed my attention with her cheesy video for her catchy song, “These Words (I Love You, I Love You),” which had me pausing in my channel-surfing whenever I saw it on VH1. There was something pleasantly screechy about her voice—and, as a former English major, I appreciated the words, with their references to the poets I was once forced to memorize.
When her second single, “Unwritten,” made its way onto the weekly video countdown, the upbeat lyrics and, once again, the catchiness of the song sold me. What can I say? Sometimes I’m a sucker for pop music with a good message. I thought I was on to something here—so I decided to check out the album.
I expected great things when I popped Unwritten into my car’s CD player. But what I got was the two songs that had gotten my attention—along with a bunch of fluff. I really wanted to like this album. I wanted it to be full of songs that get stuck in my head and have to be forcefully pried out. But, unfortunately, it’s not. None of the other songs on the album are quite as smart or witty or catchy as the two singles. On most of the songs, it seems as though Bedingfield tries really hard to make smart literary references or to create brilliant metaphors, but it just doesn’t work. She just tries too hard to say too much. And the music that accompanies the lyrics is just nothing special. There’s another goofball pop song or two, and there are a couple of ballad-y R&B-style songs that remind me of the cheesy stuff that I’m almost embarrassed to admit that I listened to when I was in middle school, while crying over some scrawny pre-teen boy who didn’t know I existed. But there’s nothing on the album that jumped out at me as something I could play over and over again—something that I wanted to convert to MP3 and take with me wherever I went. Something that would put a smile on my face or make me dance in the car and make my fellow drivers look at me funny. In fact, other than those two singles, I didn’t find anything worth remembering. It’s too bad—because Bedingfield’s singles showed great promise, with a great pop sound and smart lyrics.
Perhaps there will be another album—and Bedingfield can focus on the good parts of her music. But for now, if you like her singles, pick up a few of the MP3s from Napster and pass on the album.
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