Quick Album Reviews
Monday, November 30th, 2009
A quick post on recent music I’ve been listening to. I’m listening to more music these days than I used to a couple of years ago, probably because I now primarily purchase all my music from iTunes and rarely ever buy any physical disks. I can only buy music from the UK iTunes store because I have a bank account in the UK, but it is still annoying at times because there are some tracks which are only sold in the US or some other jurisdiction, but not in the UK. For example, only the standard version of OneRepublic’s “Waking Up” is sold on UK iTunes, while the US has also the delux version of the album which has four extra tracks. I always get the delux version if it has more tracks, I do not understand why someone would buy the standard edition which has four missing tracks when the whole purpose of buying an album is get ALL the tracks.
OneRepublic – Waking Up
“Waking Up” is OneRepublic’s sophomore album which got released a couple of weeks ago. I really liked their previous album “Dreaming Out Load” which I still continue to listen to from to time until today. For those who do not know OneRepublic, they are the group behind “Apologize” – one of the most downloaded ever on iTunes. The main man behind the group, Ryan Tedder, has produced many hits such as Bleeding Love by Leona Lewis, Halo by Beyonce, and Battlefield by Jordin Sparks.
I thought that Waking Up continued the same formula of Dreaming Out Loud with more grand instrumentals this time and a more positive message. I cannot say that I like Waking Up more than Dreaming Out Loud, but I love songs such as Made For You, All the Right Moves, Secrets, and Marching On which is without doubt my favorite track on the album. It has been also confirmed that Timbaland is going to have a remix of Marching On on his new album Shockwave Value II! I CAN’T WAIT TO HEAR THAT ONE!
Leona Lewis – Echo
The second album by Leona Lewis was one of my most anticipated albums of the year. It is also the first album I ever preorder in my life… and it did not disappoint. I fell in love with Happy (produced by Ryan Tedder) the instant I listened to it. The album has a good combination of power ballads and pop songs. My favorite tracks on the album are Happy, I Got You, Can’t Breathe, Outta My Head, My Hands, Love Letter, Naked, and Broken. (Isn’t this like the whole album? 
) Surprisingly, I’m not really big on Leona’s duet with OneRepublic. Leona Lewis’ song My Hands has also been picked by Square-Enix to be one of the theme songs for the English language release of Final Fantasy XIII – That is cool!
Alexandra Burke – Overcome
Though I was a really big fan on Alexandra on X Factor, I was not very impressed by her first single Bad Boys, it was clear to me that an effort was made to distinguish her from Leona Lewis and make her have a more edgy and urban sound. I did not like her album the first time I listened to it, but it grew really big on me with time and NOW I AM OBSESSED WITH A SONG CALLED “YOU BROKE MY HEART” it is nothing like the music I listen to and it is sung in a really awesome British accent! Other songs I like on this album include the Silence, Dumb, It’s Over, They Don’t Know, and Goodnight Good Morning (which Brandy sang but never released). I must say that I am really pleased with Alexandra’s first album!
