Friday 13 January 2012

Review: Alexandra Burke "Elephant"



alex burke elephant review cover


Want a guaranteed hit record? Who doesn't! Well, you could try the same tactic as Alexandra Burke has employed with new single Elephant, and take a whole load of popular hits and cram them into one song. Genius, right?

From the similar repeating chords of The Wanted's Glad you came; the build up, fade outs and dynamics of Rihanna's We found love; a little bit of JLS' She makes me wanna; and vocal styling harking to Kelly Rowland's Down for whatever, Elephant is all kinds of things but original. Being derivative isn't always a bad thing though, especially if it has that something special about it, but this track doesn't. Sounding overall neither terrible or brilliant  and ultimately more disappointing than anything else.

With a voice as resonant and powerful as Burke has, it's annoying that she would waste it on material like this. However, assuming the rest of the new album allows for her vocal chops to shine unimpeded by electronic distortion and auto tune, I'm willing to give Alexandra Burke a pass for Elephant.

Verdict: D-


11 comments:

  1. Wow. What the fuck is up with all these generic electro-pop songs?? Thank God for Lana Del Rey. 

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  2. Totally, you can not believe how excited I am about her debute album!

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  3. She's epic with it live though: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPQxSDgc0Mc

    Don't pass just yet. I think it was done for effect, but I dont get it either i.e autotune.

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  4. Eugh.....I don't know why I am surprised but this is truly pish! FAIL!!!

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  5. Her voice is amazing, and i admit it does sound a little better live, but my problem is the material itself. This song, the way it is, could have even been sung by Britney Spears! Like i said in the review, there is nothing wrong with trying to be on trend, or like everyone else sonically, but you  need to inject some individuality into it to stand out from those other artists/songs.

    The song itself could been improved vastly if they'd pushed alex's vocals more, for instance the quietening after the middle eight would have sounded awesome with a sustained fifth octave chest belt. Just little tweaks to remind the public that this is a vocalist!

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  6. This review is quite harsh.

    A lot of songs use auto-tune these days, it seems unfair to single Alexandra out for criticism. 

    Either way, it's going to be huge so I'm not worried.

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  7. Lana Del Ray is great, but she hasn't got a fraction of the vocal ability of Alexandra (as exemplified as her bombing on SNL).

    They are just very different artists, so it seems odd to compare them.

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  8. I love alex, but I really feel she is better than this. But i agree with you about Lana in your other comment. One in is a studio artist- Which Lana has acknowledged herself- and the other an all round entertainer.

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  9. Oh, I wasn't comparing them I was just referring to the current popular style of music (dance beats, autotune) and how Lana Del Rey is doing something different, while Alexandra Burke seems to have conformed to the popular style. I was just saying that it's nice to hear something new coming out that different. 

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  10. HAAHAH! The "elephant" in the room is how bad this song is!

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  11. http://youtu.be/12AEhjACrxg As I was wholly disappointed with the song (which is slowly growing on me now) I noticed this on Digital Spy and it kinda blew me away...

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