Introducing Joss Stone: Extended Joss Stone

Introducing Joss Stone: Extended

1	Change (Vinnie Jones Intro) 0:35
2	Girl They Won't Believe It 3:15
3	Headturner 3:16
4	Tell Me 'Bout It 2:49
5	Tell Me What We're Gonna Do Now 4:22
6	Put Your Hands on Me 2:58
7	Music 3:41
8	Arms of My Baby 2:52
9	Bad Habit 3:41
10	Proper Nice 3:24
11	Bruised But Not Broken 4:15
12	Baby Baby Baby 4:35
13	What Were We Thinking 4:24
14	Music Outro 3:48

Barnes & Noble

After two critically acclaimed albums and a Gap ad campaign, Joss Stone hardly needs an introduction. So perhaps Introducing Joss Stone is a re-introduction, now that the Brit soul siren has found her artistic identity -- here, she sounds less like a young woman channeling her older idols and more like an original idol in the making. Thanks to her pitch-perfect collaboration with producer and singer-songwriter Raphael Saadiq, Introducing has a sexy, '60s soul-meets-the Love Unlimited Orchestra vibe. And from the look of the inset photo of the psychedelic body-painted duo intertwined, they got along rather well. The disc opens with the jubilant, string-laden "Girl They Won't Believe It," but the album doesn't fully come alive until Track 7, the hip-hop-tinged "Music," although a guest appearance by the reclusive Lauryn Hill nearly outshines Stone's smoldering vocals. Amid Saadiq's rapturous soundscape of dizzying stings and percolating bass lines, the newly redheaded singer's powerhouse pipes are golden, notably on the Stevie Wonder-reminiscent "Arms of My Baby," the Donna Summer-esque "Bad Habit," and the doo-wop-and-gospel-inspired "What Were We Thinking." Full of mellifluous melodies and irresistible grooves, this is one meet-and-greet you don't want to miss. Tracy E. Hopkins

All Music Guide

Typically, artists dispense with introductions after their debut -- after all, that is an album designed to introduce them to the world -- but neo-soul singer Joss Stone defiantly titled her third album Introducing Joss Stone, thereby dismissing her first two relatively acclaimed albums with one smooth stroke. She now claims that those records were made under record-label pressure -- neatly contradicting the party line that her debut, The Soul Sessions, turned into a retro-soul project after Joss implored her label to ditch the Christina Aguilera-styled urban-pop she was pursuing -- but now as a young adult of 19, she's free to pursue her muse in her own fashion. All this is back-story to Introducing, but Stone makes her modern metamorphosis plain on the album's very first track, where football-star-turned-Hollywood-muscle Vinnie Jones talks about change ("I see change, I embody change, all we do is change, yeah, I know change, we're born to change" and so on and so forth), setting the stage for some surprise -- which "Girl They Won't Believe It" kind of delivers, if only because it isn't all that different from what Stone has done before. It's a sprightly slice of Northern soul propelled by a bouncy Motown beat that doesn't suggest a change in direction as much as a slight shift in aesthetic. Gone are the seasoned studio pros, in are a bevy of big-name producers all united in a mission to make Stone seem a little less like a '60s blue-eyed soul diva and a little more her age, a little more like a modern girl in 2007. So, the professional in-the-pocket grooves have been replaced by drum loops, the warm burnished sound has been ditched in favor of crisp, bright sonics, Harlan Howard covers have been pushed aside for cameos by Common and Lauryn Hill. It's a cosmetic change that works: Introducing does sound brighter, fresher than her other two albums, pitched partway between Amy Winehouse and Back to Basics Christina yet sounding very much like Texas at their prime. Stephen Thomas Erlewine