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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Lady Sovereign goes through growing pains, April 18, 2009
With "Jigsaw," listeners can tell that Lady Sovereign's still a little lost as to what kind of music she wants to make.
Lady Sovereign has always dangerously straddled the line between rap and dance club music. "Jigsaw" marks a change of pace, in which the British rap star decided to switch to M.I.A. style rap and dance music.
But Lady Sovereign is not exactly as original or as fresh as M.I.A. Sure, her first song is a hot tune with hard-hitting club beats and squeeking electronic sounds. Sovereign sounds pretty sexy singing in a low alto "I'm weird and you're weird/Let's be mates."
Her next song, however, is a little flat. She raps to some really cheap synthesizer sample of "Close To Me." And with weird lyrics such as "And when the beat went on, and it really ain't f***in' hot enough/You should've seen me runnin' out the studio like Forrest Gump", she really just doesn't do her original sample justice.
Sometimes Sov tries to sing like a diva, as in the title track "Jigsaw," but it doesn't work. Her vocal work is decent at best, but it sounds so out of place with the cheap rock beat and the dull string ensemble in the background.
Finally, listeners will get really tired of her cheesy vocal effects. It's tiring to listen to Sov say "doin' it" with that scratchy low vocoder effect for the twenty-umpteenth time in "I Got You Dancing."
It's a shame, because she has quite a lot to say in her album. There's nothing more irresistable that her song "Pennies," in which she sings "How many pennies have been gone from me?" to a bumping dance beat and some funky wah-wah synthesizers.
Still, Sov's album sounds decent for a rap/dance album. Sure, Sov is definitely no M.I.A., but she still sounds reasonably cool and sexy on "Jigsaw." She just doesn't sound great.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not Much of a Puzzle (2.5 stars), June 6, 2009
When I briefly moonlighted as a rock n' roll DJ at a greasy hipster haven on the Lower East Side about 5 years ago, people began whispering about Lady Sovereign, a Grime Electro Rapper, a little white chick from London named Louise who was making a name for herself in the typical smoky underground fashion: through frenetic club shows and perky interest on hip hop blogs.
What was she gonna be, a sort of 21st Century Salt N Pepa (a significant influence of hers) or something even dirtier, even grander, more far out and spliced together than ever before?
Actually--Not really. She's sort of what the Stone Roses were to Britpop: almost immediately upstaged by the very genre she seemed to sally forth, claw out, and re-awaken. No one's saying it's fair, but Amy Winehouse came along and sunk her teeth into the tabloids with a sheer, very real recklessness and a rather awesome voice. Lilly Allen emerged from the preening London club culture with a brash, effective naturalism and two records like teflon: evocative, melodic, funny, and too charming to dismiss. And then, as if nailing the coffin shut, came M.I.A. who seemed to just do it better: sexier, edgier, brittle and dynamic.
That's not to say that listening to "Jigsaw" is like donning a Members Only jacket with a handful of mousse to dine at a nu-speakeasy on Eldridge Street in 2009. But....maybe kinda? The record tries hard, but too hard; it's ultimately overdone by a thrumming sort of desperation. It's busier and louder than it needs to be. Songs like "Let's Be Mates" and "I Got You Dancing" aren't more clever than their titles suggest, and cloy rather quickly. Both the title track and "Bang Bang" are actually great tracks. With propulsive beats, Lady Sov seems to fit into her own strangulated raps. Danceworthy near-anthems, they shimmer and bend only to get buried by the boring, rat-tatty delirium that marks tracks 5 through 10.
"So Human" the clear lone gem here, is a winning cover of "Close to Me" by The Cure, and sure to make my favorite ipod playlist. Does it say something that her most honest and successful track is nothing more than a cover of a New Wave classic? Probably not. Let's not forget M.I.A.'s best song, "Paper Planes" (and all it's endless remixed versions) samples a riff from the Clash. So what is it about Lady Sov? Her voice can cut through tin, but she seemingly drowns here, on this Lady-Rapper-for-Starbucks album. In this cut-and-paste itunes music era, very few records have a mean seamless cohesion. She paved the way, but got a little lazy in the process. Lily Allen peeped a hole into a world. And so did Amy Winehouse (not that I'd want to be there) so maybe she needs to throw out the pyrotechnics, go inwards, focus on the rhymes, put sense into the words, and do what all artists do again and again--find her voice.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
You be the judge, June 3, 2009
Lady Sovereign has her own hip-hop-synth-pop-electro sound. Listening to the first three tracks (Let's Be Mates, So Human and Jigsaw) I was able to interpret that her lyrics was representing her own personal life with the whirlwinds of fame and the music business. She sounds like the "wrong side of the tracks" girl that is trying to take charge of her own life. She offers a variety of genres from rap, pop, new-wave, hip-hop and electro pop/dance throughout this album. That's a lot of variety! Her quirky raps and wordplay gives her music an uplift beat to them. Now there are some songs that are just "skippable" like Food Play and I Got the Goods but overall I enjoyed this CD. Somewhat disappointed though that there are only 10 songs with a total playing time of 37 minutes. Lady Sovereign I believe experiments with much of the music on this album because she is just trying to find out who she really is and what she really wants. All in all she is just having fun and I would recommend this CD so you can judge it for yourself.
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