JoJo - 25 to Life

I don't know why I'm so emotional about this new album. Maybe it's because JoJo was the first artist whose career I followed from the very beginning and I bought both of her albums within months of them coming out. JoJo shaped my taste in music - her first album allowed me to explore what American pop/R&B sounded like and showed me how a beautiful melody could make me melt like butter.

I said this when the clips were released but it's true. Her sophomore album was out, promotion ended and The High Road took a backseat in the music library - I discovered thousands of other songs until I eventually stopped listening to her for months. I learned to live with the fact that it's taking ages for her new album to finally be released but now that I've heard this song I can't imagine how I survived.

This is what I mean when I say a kid's voice will grow over the years. Her first album showed that her voice was just a bit on the squeaky side and her had less color and depth - a kid's voice. There were times when she tried to sound like a 40 year-old but the young qualities of her voice were still there, you knew she wasn't old. Once The High Road was out her voice got a little deeper and developed some color - like how a proper teenager should sound. Suddenly you heard power when she hit the high notes that you didn't know existed but she still had some soft spots and squeaky parts.

The difference of her voice on this new song from her first album is gigantic though - she sounds like a young woman. Her voice has color and when she hits the high notes the squeaky-ness is gone, replaced with certainty and confidence - this girl knows what she's doing now and she's not afraid to show it.

This new song is an absolute pleasure to listen to. It's everything JoJo is as an artist and it makes you want to tap your foot along or snap your fingers. The hook isn't infectious and a lot of people in the Philippines most probably won't like it because it doesn't sound like crappy Rihanna or overrated Lady GaGa. The song at certain points can become the most gorgeous thing in the world but at other times it's probably the most brilliant thing ever. It has the ability to suck you in and make you worship the song and that's what makes me like it so much.

You know what angers me the most though? If JoJo needed three years to make an album I'd understand that - as long as by the end of those three years we'd get an album filled with songs like this but she finished the album in a year in a half. So what happened? Well she switched labels which shouldn't take another year and a half to fix(it would take some time, yes but not A YEAR AND A HALF.) but you know what went wrong? Watch JoJo ranting about it below.

Damn you Universal Music. You think Rihanna's one of your top priorities? She's nothing compared to this girl and even if the album wasn't JoJo's, you can't make someone wait that long without reassurance.

Sorry about that. Like I told Ken on Twitter last night, I'm a JoJo fan first and foremost. My opinions on her may be prejudiced, I may freak out when she has a new song and if someone is preventing her from putting music out I'll become a very angry fan girl - record labels haven't seen the worse of me yet(I don't think they've even heard of me but whatever.).

Naturally, 5/5