Natasha Bedingfield - Pocketful of Sunshine

Natasha Bedingfield - maybe better known as the extremely commercialized pop singer whose “Unwritten” played all last season every time a dancer was voted off So You Think You Can Dance. [If you’re thinking, “Matt, it’s pretty sad that you know that fact”, my only response is three words long: I am married.] Though Natasha’s style of music is definitely outside of my expertise and artistic understanding, I decided (as did Sir Robert Frost way back when) to “take the road less traveled”.

The US release of her largely successful sophomore album, Pocketful Of Sunshine has hit the music marketplace with mixed reviews. A major bone of contention with critics and fans of Natasha is the fact that the UK release (entitled N.B. and released in April of 2007) featured a lot more jarring and creative sounds (mostly thanks to Adam Levine of Maroon 5 who produced half of the UK release and none of the US one). Instead, her US release offers no Levine influence and only one guest appearance from Sean Kingston on “Love Like This”.

Truthfully, I find myself wanting to like Natasha Bedingfield more as a person than as an artist. Though her ever-bubbly, pop musicality is becoming more diversified with each album (as she is reportedly going to be working with Beyonce and possibly Jay-Z in some upcoming material), there is really nothing that is earth shatteringly astounding in the text of her lyrics. The track “Happy” puts this fact on display nicely:

Got my life, got my dreams, got my love
Got my friends, got the sunshine above
Why am i making this hard on myself
When there are so many reasons i have to be happy

Yeah…I suppose you have a point there, Natasha, but…flesh it out a little! The easily sing-a-long-able “Angel” has more of a Mary J. Blige or Rihanna feel to it than that of the sound of “Unwritten” (the breakout track for her career). In all honesty, there is nothing really fundamentally wrong with this record - Pocketful Of Sunshine is a tightly woven, upbeat and solidly crafted pop album. Why the controversy between the US release and the UK version? Who cares? The real issue here is that NB really doesn’t have anything original, provocative or noteworthy to say.

On a final and refreshing side-note, though, Natasha has apparently taken much heat from the media for her ever-normal “girl next door” appearance. Apparently, she refuses to pose for any men’s magazines and is very outspoken in her desire to not represent herself falsely. Thus far, in her career, and for being in the spotlight as much as she has been, I say that this gal (who got her musical start as a Hillsong worship leader) has done a decent job in sticking to her moral guns in the face of the relentlessly female-victimizing media of North America.