Review Summary: our queen contorts traces of the old with a new, common style.
This album is plagued of music that is very reminiscent of generic club and dance that was popular at the time, and not much like the two albums that released previously. This isn’t necessarily a completely negative shift in direction. Jasmin Wagner had perfected Happy Hardcore with “Herzenfrenq”, and had produced a sound so extreme on “Verliebt…”, that I actually believe it more efficient and interesting that nineteen ninety-eight’s “Jasmin” had a different sound.
There’s no use in hiding it, “Jasmin” was Blümchen’s shot at a more accessible album that could potentially broaden her success into an international scene. Everything has been slowed down. The melodies aren’t as good and feel much more restricted. Many beats are indistinguishable between stock stuff you’d here in euro clubs at the time. The late 90’s futuristic bleeps and disco themes are beyond dated. These factors do often help add to the record's atmospheric feel at times.
"Blauen Augen" is the most fun you’ll have on any of the tracks, as it captures the energy and soul of her old songs and blends them with the new style. It’s adventurous, fun, fast. Jasmin’s vocals and delivery are excellent, sounding anything but serious. "Ich bin wieder hier", in contrast, displays Jasmin’s wonderful voice talents as emotionally driven. The epic sweeping chorus features the main melody, with the rest of the beats coming off as a little too generic. And that’s the main problem you can sum up “Jasmin” with. "U-Bahn", "So Wie Ein Wunder", and "Immer Noch Verliebt" are the best songs outside of the two mentioned before, and feature one or two nice bits here or there. But getting to these bits required you to slog through what surrounds them; uninteresting melodies that go nowhere, boring beats, uninspired dance segments. Most songs just take way too long to get started or get to the point. And all this gets much worse when trekking through the rest of the tracks. Most of it meanders, or sounds ripped from something like Street Figher III third strike's or Donkey Kong Country 3's soundtracks.
It’s a shame the new sound on “Jasmin” didn’t really go over all that well critically, and it’s probably easy for a lot of people to point and pout at Blümchen’s near abandonment of Happy Hardcore. Instead of getting a tired, exhausted record of that genre, we got a tired, exhausted record of a different genre, but at least we got something different before Jasmin vanished. Overall, it’s okay, with one or two good songs, but getting to the good parts of others just isn’t worth your time. There’s been a ditch of painfully dated and generic Eurodance dug around them. Oh, and “Heut' ist mein Tag” is alright, and not just for the obvious nostalgic reasons. A bit of sunshine like something you’d find on “Verliebt…”… but it’s alright.
