 | |
List Price: $13.98 | | Label: 101 DISTRIBUTION
Salesrank: 1091
Released: November 10, 2009 |
| Our Price: $13.98 |
| Used Price: $6.85 |
|
| Media: Audio CD |
|
Colour Me Free! Track Listing:
1. Free Me
2. Could Have Been You
3. Parallel Lines - featuring Jeff Beck and Sheila E.
4. Lady
5. 4 and 20
6. Big 'Ol Game - featuring Raphael Saadiq
7. Governmentalist - featuring Nas
8. Incredible
9. You Got The Love
10. I Believe It To My Soul - featuring David Sanborn
11. Stalemate - with Jamie Hartman
12. Girlfriend On Demand
13. Mr. Wankerman (Bonus Tracks)
Editorial Review:
UK 13-track CD album - Written and recorded at Mama Stones, Joss' mother's live music venue in Devon and produced alongside Jonathan Shorten and Conor Reeves, 'Colour Me Free' is an eclectic mix of pop, soul, R'n'B, funk, hip-hop and gospel sounds. Highlights include the lead single 'Free Me', a pop song with an infectiously catchy chorus while 'Incredible' possesses a raw funk sound. 'Could have been You' captures urban influences and 'You Got The Love' carries strong Gospel undertones. With guest appearances from Jeff Beck & Sheila E., Raphael Saadiq and Nas. EMI. 2009.
Colour Me Free! Reviews:
Welcome back to Soul 
2009-12-14 - Whatever you say about Joss Stone, you've got to include this woman has a set of pipes beyond compare. I'm glad to see her back to her Old School Soul roots.
I like the whole album and there's not a single track not worthy of three stars, but the rockingest five of the dozen cuts are the ones I cannot stop listening to: Free Me, Incredible, I Believe it in my Soul (With David Sanborn guesting), Girlfriend on Demand, and Colour Me Free.
Rebecca Kyle, December 2009
Beyoncé with PMS? 
2009-12-11 - Let me get one thing clear from the start: this is undoubtedly Joss Stone's best album so far. The songs are okay and the musical backing is quite good.
However! Joss Stone sounds like Beyoncé with a bad case of PMS - she sounds like she's overwrought and having a "hissy-fit" in every song. Worse, she sounds like a Karaoke Blues singer - someone who is trying to impersonate someone else.
I've heard this album countless times in my workplace now. I am not sure what one is supposed to with it? There isn't any great emotional depth to the album. You couldn't dance to it. The lyrics of the songs aren't particularly insightful and the voice of Joss Stone is too distracted and distracting for the album to make pleasant background music.
If you're buying this CD for a child of sixteen years or under, note that the photo of Ms Stone smoking in the CD notes could be considered an unhealthy influence on children. Joss Stone, as a singer, is a complete idiot for smoking. Any singer who smokes is a damned fool.
Finally back to her retro funk roots, where her beautiful voice is best used.
2009-11-20 - This is a good comeback which eschews her previous album's hip-hop, leanings for more straightforward retro soul funk: Joss Stone has finally returned to the retro-soul music that first helped to turn her into one of the UK's most promising new artists.
Her sound is hardly new anymore and Stone has been overtaken somewhat by artists such as Amy Winehouse and Duffy (commercially) and Adele and Beth Rowley. Hence, that's why "Colour Me Free!" perhaps lacks the originality of Stone's earliest work... or the freshness.
Fortunately for Joss, she has built a good working relationship with Conner Reeves, who co-writes many tracks and helps produce them.
Amid nods to Stevie Wonder, Al Green and Dionne Warwick, what most impresses is her voice, which has acquired emotional resonance to match its size.
"Colour Me Free!" is at its best when keeping things snappy
The single "Free Me" a free spirited blast of Motown/Northern with nice guitar licks and an electric sitar break. It is followed by the equally charming "Could Have Been You", which waltzes along on a bed of twinkling piano chords, cute guitar licks and soulful vocals.
The piano blues "4 and 20", with its organ shadings and shivering strings, recalls the Memphis funk of Willie Mitchell's classic Al Green hits.
Jeff Beck and Sheila E crop up on "Parallel Lines", but don't quite gel as effectively as they should.
"Governmentalist" is a rare groove of political soul with a sharp rap from Nas, "Big Ole Game" is a far better blues-soul offering that features Raphael Saadiq, while the vocal trade-off between Stone and Jamie Hartman on "Stalemate" provides another bona fide highlight.
Understated slap-bass carries Joss's emotive delivery of Candi Staton's hit "You Got The Love", and David Sanborn's waspish sax decorates her take on Ray Charles's "I Believe It To My Soul", but the most obvious indication of how comfortable she is with this regained blues-soul mode is the concluding "Mr Wankerman", a slow, brooding putdown which expands into a 14-minute jam.
The album is intermittently fun and reminds us of how her voice is best used... rather than in R'n`B diva terms.
Highlights : "Free Me", "Parallel Lines", "4 and 20", "stalemate", "Governmentalist" and "Mr. Wankerman".
Little Dreamer
Rockferry
Here and Gone
A welcome return to form for the British songstress.
2009-11-20 - The 22 year-old British songstress is back after a two-year break with an interesting album.
Delayed for a year by a label with whom she has fallen into dispute, "Colour Me Free!" represents a return to the retro-soul style of Joss Stone's debut following the ill-advised attempts to squeeze her into the R&B diva mould.
With her previous offering "Intoducing...", Joss turned into a wacky hippy chick with a weird dress sense and an even weirder transatlantic twang. And then, to make matters worse, Amy Winehouse stepped it up a gear and stole her thunder. Well, watch out, Amy, because Joss has returned and she wants her thunder back!
Interesting to note, too, that the album's title (COLOUR...) keeps its British spelling on both sides of the Atlantic.
Joss's original front cover showed her curled up and contorted, behind bars - her not-so-subtle attempt at saying record label EMI are trapping her.
"Colour Me Free!" is classic Joss. In other words, it's jam-packed with retro R'n'B numbers that sound like they are being sung by a tortured soul singer from Detroit, rather than a 22 year old from Devon.
Her voice sounds less likely to cause her damage, her material is (until some saggy bits towards the end) strong and her choice of guests (Nas, Shiela E, Jeff Beck and Sanborn) very good.
Vintage celebrities are wheeled out: Jeff Beck's nimble fluid jazz funk licks lift the slight "Parallel Lines", while David Sanborn's saxophone showboats all over "I Believe It To My Soul".
She also totally rips it up on her funky cover of "You Got The Love" and the smooth "Stalemate".
The voice is on fine form, rich and sexy, especially on her recent single "Free Me", the tunes are a mix of defiant, uplifting and heart-wrenching and R'n'B rumbler "Big Ole Game" is another highlight.
The fact that the songs were written and recorded in such a short space of time - a week, reportedly - gives "Colour Me Free!" an attractive vibrancy in its actual performances, but the lack of any truly standout moments renders it far from exceptional or memorable : despite the brilliant playing of her band, the album lacks the dark excitement of Amy's "Back To Black" or the bluesy pop thrills of Adele's 19".
My favourite tracks: "Free Me", "Stalemate", "You Got the Love" and "Big Ole Game".
Just to wrap this up: the album is a mixed bag.
But give her a chance, buy it and you may like it a lot!
Introducing Joss Stone
Back to Black
19
