Music Review: Jennifer Hudson's "Jennifer Hudson"

When a diva gets born like Jennifer Hudson from Dreamgirls, I think it becomes a requirement to get their first solo album once it comes out. So I bought the album last Tuesday along with Robin Thicke's Something Else, I liked Spotlight before and the rest of the songs are really not that bad. When a promising starlet is discovered, everyone in the world would want to collaborate with her, and everyone did. Each song in the album is written by different people, I thought If This Isn't Love is a love ballad with great arrangements, Pocketbook with Ludacris is sassy and fun it's one of the few tracks that really injected personality in the song and made it pop. Robin Thicke wrote a very simple and beautiful ballad in Giving Myself. I didn't even mind the duet with special effect T-Pain in What's Wrong (Go Away).

Another former American Idol contestant Fantasia lends her voice in a snarky I'm His Only Woman, which reminds me of Brandy/Monica's The Boy is Mine. Who are all these two timers that inspire these songs? I wonder if these two former contestants regard this song as a competition of sorts, because it showcase their voices pretty good. I also like Can't Stop The Rain about a drunk driving accident a la Eminem's Stan, And I'm Telling You from Dreamgirls is in the album and not to be stereotypical but the album ends with a Christian song called Jesus Promised Me a Home Over There.

The problem I have with this album is that with all that many different talents producing the album, it clearly lack some sort of directions. There are way too many ballads that make this album a bit boring to say the least. There's no clean cut personal style, it feels like everyone is demonstrating what they can do with Jennifer and no one is writing specifically for her. It's more of a demo than a debut album. Again, individually the songs are not bad, it's just if you hear them altogether you'll lost track of who you're listening to along the way. (That's why I liked Pocketbook) Maybe it'll take time for her to develop her own signatures and personal style but some songs made her a little Kelly-Pricey or Angie-Stony. I guess success takes time. C-

Favorite Songs: Spotlight, Can't Stop The Rain, Pocketbook.