Todays’ Pop Rescue from a fate uncertain, is the 1998 eponymous debut album Jennifer Paige by American singer Jennifer Paige. Will this album be like a huge Crush, or will it be a Sobering listen? Read on…

This 11 track CD opens with the familiar acoustic guitars, bass, and plodding beat of lead and hit single Crush. This is a wonderfully cosy track, with Jennifer’s vocals making light work of the lyrics with tons of space around her to show off the richness of her voice, and the breathy backing vocals fit perfectly. The balance is perfect between her and the musicians. The track rightly gave Jennifer a hit, taking her to #4 in the UK singles chart. We’re off to a perfect start.

Next is Questions, and this gives us another nice up-beat song, that makes me think briefly of a kind of Des’ree meets a sleepy Alanis Morissette. The chorus works wonderfully well as the beat thumps through the layered vocals. This really should have been a single as it is a nice song that flows effortlessly and is pretty catchy. There’s a nice little pitch bent riff in places, and that works well as the song grows.

That’s followed by the album version of the third and final single Always You, and as you might be able to tell from the title alone, it’s a heartfelt ballad. Here, Jennifer is joined by some strings alongside the acoustic guitar. The track once again feels warm, gentle, and this allows her to show off her vocal delicacy and range. There’s a remix later in the track listing, but this version is quite nice.

Get To Me follows that, lifting the tempo slightly with some shuffling percussion. A simple synth swells in the background as the song build and Jennifer’s vocals layer. Then suddenly her vocals burst open and she sounds wonderful in what is the first chorus. Electric guitars and piano join in for this to give it a harder sound, but as we return to the verse, they stick around ensuring the song builds steadily.

Then it’s Busted, and this takes a clear deviation away from the style of the album so far. The percussion here is shuffling, but at times this is the closest in the narrative miserableness to Alanis’ style. It’s a mid-tempo nice song despite it’s downbeat lyrics.

Next up is second single Sober, and this returns us to gentle strummed guitars. From the outset, Jennifer gets some nice narrative lyrics that gives us some nice little verses. The chorus gives us a burst of backing vocals and drums, and hints at Jennifer’s vocal power and range. Unfortunately, the single failed to follow on from Crush’s success, with a stumble at #68 on the UK chart.

Fingersnaps and chime bars lead us in to Between You And Me. Yes, it’s another heartfelt ballad, and one that allows Jennifer to show off her softer soulful vocals. It’s somewhat textbook love ballad, which could have been recorded by anyone, but it’s just ‘nice’.

Then it’s time for ballad Let It Rain. The fingersnaps are back, with an R&B beat, and the lingering vocals too, resulting in something that sounds like a Mariah Carey album track. The track does have some really nice backing vocals and Jennifer gets to belt out the chorus in a welcome blast of vocal power.

The tempo lifts again for next song Just To Have You, and we’re treated to a slightly more up-beat song complete with electric guitars that occasionally drop in alongside piano. A repetitive backing vocal repeats the song title, and Jennifer plays off this regularly, and this adds a bit of catchiness to the song. Once again, it’s nice enough.

Somewhere, Someday follows that and we’re safely back in fingersnap territory, and this time we seem to have found a gospel choir, and a contrasting male vocalist who works quite nicely alongside Jennifer’s vocals. Whilst they do their thing, Jennifer puts in a great vocal performance showing off her power and range. However, the plodding verses in between are somewhat generic in a way that would make Mariah proud again.

The album closes with Always You (Bonus Remix) which is a welcome burst of thumping dance beats and claps. This version stood as the final single, but despite this remix that reminds me slightly of Missing (Todd Terry Mix) by Everything But The Girl in their second-coming dance chart success, the song failed to gain attention, falling at #81 in the UK chart. Some bigger dance mixes might have scored her a bigger hit.

Verdict

Over all, this album is just a nice album and therefore it suffers from a lack of big memorable moments.

There’s no stinkers here, as the album falls into the type of category in which you’d put a Dido album – you put it on and then a few minutes it seems to have run through all the tracks and you need to find another one. At times the album does seem to pick some energy and pack a catchy punch or two – the highlights obviously being Crush, but also Questions, Let It Rain, and Sober have enough about them to make them single-worthy or memorable.

The rest are mostly middle-of-the-road niceness – well produced, and well performed by Jennifer, but just lacking in a burst of energy or unique value. Given the low position of the album, I suspect that the UK just felt it had enough artists already of this style.

• POP RESCUE 2023 ALBUM RATING: 3 / 5
• 1998 UK ALBUM CHART PEAK: #67
• POP RESCUE COST: 50p from a Discogs.com seller.