Playlouder - Music is the Network

The debut album from Little Jackie scores points straight away, because at least it’s not a whole album about how she kicked some cheating asshole to the curb and how he’ll never get his hands on her sweet ass ever again. Despite first appearances, Little Jackie isn’t just one girl, it’s actually a duo, singer Imani Coppola and multi-instrumentalist Adam Palin. And it’s not at all bad.

A hybrid of funk, soul and R&B with a definite slant towards Motown, not only is the sound cheerful and upbeat, but the lyrics are decidedly more interesting than you get in your average pop R&B fair. When Imani gets hacked off with a man, she doesn’t get herself a better one, she goes lesbian instead. Journalists, debutantes and life in the hood (ok, so that one’s a bit of a staple) all get the lyrical treatment. Quite how clever lines like ‘what came first, the chicken nugget or the egg mcmuffin’ are, I leave very much up to the listeners judgement, but they’re certainly not boring.

Those who’ve heard big hit single ‘The World Should Revolve Around Me’ will know very much what to expect from this album, because it all sounds the same. It’s very samey, it seems to even be repeating itself by the end. But if this must be, at least it is resolutely upbeat, and if an album is samey, better it be jolly than dreary.  And at a relatively short 35 minutes in length, it hardly has time to outstays its welcome.