Review: Leona Lewis : "Collide" What do you think?

Leona Lewis is back with new single Collide and depressingly, even after a few listens, its not sitting well with me.

With the lukewarm success of her last album, it looks like the team behind Leona have decided to push towards the club sound that is EVERYWHERE to ensure her new endeavour will recapture past glories. So I guess who better to turn to than producer, Sandy Vee, who had a hand in producing the massive hits Only Girl (In the World) by Rihanna and Fireworks by Katy Perry to deliver a hit. 

However, the resulting track is nowhere near the pedigree of those songs and though the melody of the vocal, the lyrical content, and Leona's voice- which they need to lay off the autotune with- are strong, the production is where it all falls down.

The whole track sounds forced together with the vocal and the sample of an Avicci house tune- which sounds suspiciously A LOT like its sampled/ripped off a couple of bars of Penguin Cafe Orchestra's Perpetuum Mobile- being ill at ease with the rest of the music. The tempo- which isn't slow enough to be a ballad or quite fast enough to fit the club- makes the track feel clumsy. whereas the build up is flat and uninteresting, lacking the punch and support that Fireworks and Only Girl provided for their less than stellar vocalists.

Collide, as a whole, feels slap-dash, lazily constructed and ultimately missing the overall polish that a big hit needs. I'm all for Leona Lewis moving away from the ballads and spreading her musical wings, but she needs, and deserves, better material than that provided by Collide.

Other Leona Lewis posts that may interest you:

• Leona Lewis' vocal range
• Leona Lewis Labyrinth tour at the 02 review

Leona Lewis' Labyrinth tour: O2

Having seen plenty of Leonas' live performancespre and post X-Factor via youtube, I was pretty sure that I wasn’t in for an energetic, highly choreographed show, but rather an evening of solid vocals. However, having never seen her sing more then one song in succession I wondered how she would muster the stamina for a whole show. The short answer is she kind of didn't.

It took at least 3 songs before she really hit her stride and connected with me. It was also around this point that I noticed that although she was able to deliver on the low and high head notes she did seem to be avoiding any high octave belting. Instead, she substituted those notes with its head voice equivalent or, in the case of the belting in “Can’t breath”, just not attempting any notes whatsoever. The crowd didn’t seem to mind though and were clearly enamoured with the singer from the first note, screaming and clapping wildly regardless.

The ballads in the middle tended to blur and a T-rex cover sang by her backing singers just left me perplexed, but I held on like a trooper and was rewarded by the closing half of the show.

First came a surprising and inspired cover of the Eurythmics song “Sweet Dreams”, which seemed to inspire Leona to show a bit of attitude and charisma,which succeeded in rousing the audeince to their feet without having to be asked as Leona had previously done in the show.

Then came the two gems of Leona’s repertoire. First “Run” and then an encore of “Bleeding love”. Knowing these were the two songs that the audience would know note for note both songs were sung perfectly with the high belts included. This being the case I'm guessing Leona had been smartly pacing herself throughout the early part of the show so she could shine on these signature tunes.

Coming out of the concert I ultimately felt satisfied. I could have done without the dancers and the props, which frankly cheapened the production, and would have loved to have Lewis and the beautiful lighting be the show. But it was probable Leonas' show was an attempt to silence critics who see her as just a singer. Although her voice is truly stellar its Leonas’ humility and affection for her fans that has remained with me after the show.With a few more hits under her belt she's only going to get better.



Rating: 3.5/5

Wallpapers

Here are some wallpapers I made. Here we have Mariah Carey, Christina Aguilera and Leona Lewis. More to come soon.

Leona Lewis - Vocal Profile/ Range

Leona Lewis

Vocal Type: Lyric soprano
Vocal Range: 3 Octaves 3 notes and a semitone C3- F#6
Whistle Register: Yes
Longest Note: 12 seconds - 'Over The Rainbow' (live)
Vocal Pluses: Nice tone and texture to the voice throughout her range with a strong belt that has a pleasing vibrato to it. Chest and head voice nicely connected and she moves brilliantly between the two.
Vocal Negatives: Control of low notes is shaky and her belted notes become thinner and weaker the higher she sings