Joanna
This Crazy Life
Geffen
It seems like when a young female pop upstart releases her debut reviewers feel compelled to make sure the reader knows that any praise dished out for the album has nothing to do with the singer’s good looks, which usually means it has everything to do with them. Such is the case with me and Joanna. The girl is flat-out beautiful, and to be honest, I can’t hear a word she’s singing. She’s got a good voice if you’re a fan of vocal calisthenics, multi-tracked and thoroughly computer-scrubbed, which I’m not, but the talent is there. Unfortunately, This Crazy Life plays out as dead as any given episode of “American Idol” and is codified to resemble that show’s entire season. Limp songwriting and unadventurous instrumentation bog down each of the different “facets” of her album: the contrived funkay “Tip Toe,” the maudlin “Breathe” rip-off “4th of July” and the lugubrious title track all border on horrendous. You know there’s a problem when one of the stand-out tracks is a cover of Dashboard Confessional’s “Screaming Infidelities,” but that’s the reality here. My advice, Joanna: Dump your production and songwriting teams and make a cover record of decent indie music. And if that doesn’t work, there’s always acting and modeling…
Geffen Records: http://www.geffen.com
