I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Shontelle is one heck of an underrated artist. With her first two albums selling less than 50k each, she has never received the level of success she fully deserved. Due to this, the songstress has since parted with Universal Republic and moved to her new record label Universal Motown, home to such artists as Taylor Swift & Florence & The Machine.
In the past few months, Shontelle has been hard at work on her follow up to the awesome No Gravity and now we have the first single. Reflection is a clever and interesting take on the inspirational message that is still going around these days and I just really, really like the track. Continue reading →
Shontelle is One of the most under appreciated artists right now. First off, if y’all cast your minds back to September of last year, you may or may not know that she released her second album No Gravity. It is safe to say it flopped harder than Beyonce’s Run The World(Girls) charting at a measly #81 on the Billboard Charts & #23 on the UK R&B Chart. This was very surprising to me as she came out with the strong lead single Impossible which charted well all over & the album itself was a stellar R&B effort. Dare I say, I liked it better than RiRi’s Loud. However, with tough competition and less than admirable critical reviews it was destined to crash.
Despite this, Shontelle is determined to turn things around. The second single Perfect Nightmare never went anywhere in the charts, so she has moved on to her next one. This time around she has slowed things down with Say Hello To Goodbye. It wouldn’t be my first choice, but I can see she has chosen this to show more variety. The song is your typical R&B ballad, bittersweet with gorgeous guitar strums not so far away from Rihanna’s California Bed King.
The video doesn’t really add anything to the track, but rather just fits. Shontelle likes smaller and simplistic affairs, rather than the big, plot thickened scenes. Probably because her label doesn’t have the cash to splash upon. However, I much rather prefer this to her other music videos. The set in a train station and the classic coach along the tracks is much more effective than of Shontelle’s snooze fest tying in at 3 and a half minutes of packing her bags in the Impossible video. Also, I like the whole scarf-as-hat and glasses look. Verrrrry sophisticated.
I’m confident this will suffer the same fate as its preceder. I think the best move would be to release Take Ova which features Pitbull(shocker)! This is one of the album’s best cuts and is a hard hitting dance track. Not only would this serve well as a summer song, but the fact that Pitbull is featured will boost sales right up as he is top of charts around the world right now. God knows why. His verse is bearable on this track though. Check it out below & see what you think:
Shontelle has also announced via her Facebook that No Gravity will get a re-release sometime this year. No doubt with a revamped tracklisting. If she is going to stay relevant, she is going to have to pull the cat out of the bag.
Pop Music Magic 