Review Summary: It's pretty much just an excuse to sell some t-shirts.
"Beautiful Girls" is really a misleading song. It seems to imply that maybe Sean Kingston was going to have producers that might do something interesting; combine R&B, in the vein of Sean Paul, with bubblegum doo wop. The song is, in a word, the perfect guilty pleasure. Thing is, everything else on Sean Kingston's debut album is pretty much...uh...***.
You don't expect much out of an R&B album these days when the artist in question had an army of merchandise available a month before his album had even leaked, so I really wasn't expecting
that much. But the single that led to all of this madness ("Beautiful Girls") was probably my favorite single of the summer. Thus, my expectations for some massively awesome fusion between Sean Paul, 50's pop bands and a fat Nelly were shattered with one listen to
Sean Kingston.
Notice the two quick references to Sean Paul? Yeah thats because Sean pretty much sounds like a white kid who wanted to sound Jamaican like his idle, Sean (convoluted!). Kingston has tried to embrace his Jamaican roots supposedly, so despite the fact he was raised in the US he attempts to sing with all the vigor of a Jamaican kid fresh off the street. The result is pretty much what it sounds likes- an American trying to sound like an islander with eh results. It doesn't help they really take the time to touch up the sound of his voice in studio- while it makes for a pleasant sound on "Beautiful Girls" the rest of the album gets annoying and sterile sounding quick.
Canned beats. Thats pretty much what Sean Kingston has going for him on the entire album. While the Phil Collins sampling "There's Nothing" is a pretty interesting song, everything else pretty much could belong to any other wannabe rapper. There's the club bangers, the radio-ready hits, the ballads, and the "remix", but inexplicably missing is a real reason to buy the album! When everything sounds like a homogenized version something Sean Paul or Busta Rhymes (yes Busta) did years ago, and the most interesting part of the album is the fact Kingston samples a dreadfully boring Phil Collins song, its pretty self explanatory where this leads.
Maybe this could be salvaged if Kingston had kept the kind of innocent charm "Beautiful Girls" exudes throughout most of the album, but instead its generally more faux-gangsta frontin' made by the same tired producers (or rather producer- JR Totem produced the entirety of the album) that make the same tired album filler over and over and over. "Me Love" is a decent song and is already getting geared up to be the next single, but even thats too annoying to give Kingston another successful single. Get ready for Sean Kingston to be the big one-hit-wonder of 2007.
Sean Kingston is entirely devoid of anything that makes a pop album worth listening to; even the catchy stuff is so wrapped up in the absolute fakeness that its hard to take seriously. Perhaps a better term would be "to take lightly."
The bottom line is just get "Beautiful Girls." Its
the jam of the summer, and is a certifiable hit that'll likely be at the top of the list for the 2007 section of
Remembering the 00's. Just forget about the album and you'll never have to be bothered with more of the same tiresome trash.
