Home
Heart on My Sleeve
Barnes and Noble
Heart on My Sleeve
Current price: $17.99
Barnes and Noble
Heart on My Sleeve
Current price: $17.99
Size: CD
Loading Inventory...
*Product information may vary - to confirm product availability, pricing, shipping and return information please contact Barnes and Noble
"Boo'd Up" was so popular and long-lasting that
will likely be instantly associated with that throwback slow jam forever, but six of her other singles went either gold or platinum -- or silver in her native U.K. -- by the time she released her second album,
. Making this set seem even less like a pressure-cooked follow-up is that it contains a single that preceded it by over a year and a half, and it's not presented as anything other than what it is -- no contrivances about having made something that represents her true self, or whatever. Still working closely with
,
also welcomes other producers such as
, and
into her circle, expanding her sound with an apparent disinclination to make trap-styled R&B, yet still with a preference for spacey slow jams and lingering ballads.
as a title indicates that
is writing a little more openly than before. That's the case here, and it's almost as if the phrase was her directive as she stockpiled material. Lead single "Not Another Love Song" proved to be an accurate indicator of the album as a whole, with
relishing contact with her partner but starting with "I don't wanna mess this up" and later using water metaphors to convey that she's overwhelmed. In second single "DFMU" ("don't fuck me up"), she's skeptical and demands clarification, "Fairy tales, I'm not used to them at all," leading to "'Cause if it's love, I wanna drown," sung with her subtle if distinct vibrato. There's little variation in tempo across the hour-long sequence, but slow and low is undeniably the singer's forte. ~ Andy Kellman