Solo Star Review

Everything wrong with this album is a decision made by adults. Solange was sixteen and clearly capable, and she was handed a set of tracks designed for a different kind of star, all bright synth stabs, generic guest verses and lyrics about being fabulous that no teenager should have to sell. Feelin' You (Part II) is the one genuinely good song, light and springy and closer to the sound she would find fifteen years later.

Crush has some charm. Elsewhere the record lurches between reggae inflected pop, ballads with borrowed arrangements and one attempt at nu metal guitar that nobody has been able to explain since. The production credits run to a dozen names and it plays like it, with no throughline and no point of view. What makes it worth noting at all is the contrast with what came after, and even that is a favour it does not really earn. It is a bad album by a genuine artist who was not yet allowed to be one.