JoJo – Disaster

Remember JoJo? She was the cutesy girl who first courted musical success with Leave (Get Out) back in 2004, and all the boys at school seemed to fancy her. Then she came back in 2006 with the charming Too Little Too Late, plying R&B-lite tunes to the masses.

Now she’s gone a bit sultry and dark-haired, a tempting songstress that now comes off as looking like an American Tulisa putting out tracks caught in a limbo-state between Katy Perry and Kelly Clarkson’s cardio-charged pop anthems. Perhaps what undermines this new JoJo most though is the fact that whatever stylistic reinvention she’s gone through, her vocals remain the same; still those of a little girl, and not a woman.

She feels out of place, clawing for relevance in a market that she’s not ready for. At least during her The High Road days, she felt musically at home, even if everything did seem a little too sugary-sweet. But with Disaster (and let’s not make any obvious jokes), it’s like JoJo has been tacked onto what’s popular with the hope it’ll catch. The trouble is, she’s ended up even more disposable than she was before. It’s sort of a shame too, as dark hair really suits her.