This was announced long ago but now the time has come that Miranda Cosgrove released her first album Sparks Fly. There are two versions of the album, a standard version and a deluxe version. Here we’re going to focus on the standard version. The standard contains eight songs, the deluxe thirteen. Quite a big difference but I figure that they would have put the best stuff on the standard version so that’s why we’re focusing on it.
With eight songs the album is rather short, with not even half an hour of music. That’s more down to what’s normal these days though, music labels still seem to forgot that you can fit eighty minutes of music onto a CD. Then again, filling a CD with filler tracks isn’t really a good thing either.
Having listened to the album I sort of have mixed feelings about it. To go right to the fact; Miranda is an actress first and a singer second, that isn’t a secret. So her writing involvement on this album is limited to the first track and single Kissin’ U which she co-wrote. Some more well known names were involved in writing songs for it though, like Ke$ha (Disgusting) and Avril Lavigne (Daydream).
It’s a bit an up and down album for me, as mentioned it starts with Kissin’ U which is an alright song then however we move on to BAM which just doesn’t work for me. Then it moves right up again with Disgusting which doesn’t hide that it has Ke$ha DNA in it, at times the Autotuning might be overdone though. Autotune for effects in this case, for the rest Miranda actually sounds very natural. Can’t say that I’ve ever seen a live performances of her but it seems does she indeed can sing.
So what are the best tracks? I’d say Disgusting, Shakespeare and There Will be Tears. The not so good tracks? I’d say BAM, Oh Oh and Hey You. Hey You is just a bit too much of a stereotypical baled with nothing special to it.
This is a first attempt by Miranda as recording artist and she did quite alright. It still lacks a little bit of identity but that isn’t anything shocking for a sixteen year old, especially when they’re main trade is actress rather than recording artist. So I’m in doubt for the score, it’s somewhere inbetween 2/5 and 3/5. Looking at the fact that it’s Miranda’s first attempt I’ll give her a 3/5. While it all isn’t anything special it’s still enjoyable enough to listen to.
Tags: Miranda Cosgrove
