REVIEW : Fearless

Sony Music knows they’re onto a good thing with young US up and comer Jazmine Sullivan. Signalling her arrival in Australia with her brand new single ‘Bust Your Windows’, featured on auspOp months ago, she shows she means business, pulling no punches in settling a score with a guy who ‘done her wrong’.
The song’s so good in it’s own right, but we’d question why the word ‘bullshit’ needs censorship, given we hear much worse on the radio these days.
The reggae-fied ‘Need You Bad’ appears twice on the album – in traditional and ‘featuring T.I.’ versions, the former being the more accessible of the two, allowing the singer’s voice to truly shine.
By the time we get to track three on the album, ‘Foolish Heart’, you kinda get the feeling the girl’s been hurt once or twice in her young lifetime. Lucky us, however, because she sings with such conviction and such self-assuredness, you just know she won’t be dissed no more.
Jazmine Sullivan combines the old school sound of Amy Winehouse (without the neverending personal dramas) and combines it with the soul and sassiness of Mary J.Blige. And on her brand new album, she does so with such style and finesse that it’s impossible not to like her. It takes a few styling cues from the ‘60s (‘One Night Stand’, ‘Switch’), serves up some desperately catchy soul grooves (‘Dream Big’ – which incidentally appears on the Aussie album in a Stonebridge remix form as a bonus) and the obligatory big ballad number (‘In Love With Another Man’).
Any wonder why, then, that Sony Music Australia refuses to give up on this girl, singing her old-soul praises to all who will listen. But listen we have and quite simply put, Jazmine Sullivan’s debut Aussie album is a stylish, classy, heartfelt cut above.

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