Spirit by Leona Lewis Review

Bottom-Line: My advice to Ms. Lewis: next time around, and no doubt there will be a next time, leave Mariah at home and bring your voice and personality to the musical table.

I wanted to believe.  I wanted to like Ms. Leona Lewis the exotic and beautiful 23-year old Brit from London, England, who is supposed to be (according to one Simon Cowell) the second coming of Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston all rolled into one multi-cultural package.  

To be fair I listened to Spirit, released April 8th in the United States, a number of times before sitting down to pen this review.  And every time, after every spin of the CD, I was left with the impression that despite what its name implies, Ms. Lewis's debut CD is surprisingly devoid of soul and character. 

The one song that might have announced Ms. Lewis in style, track No. 8, The First Time Ever I saw Your Face, a song Roberta Flack made famous, was nothing but mediocre.  When Ms. Lewis's voice should have rang out and tugged at the listeners ears and heart, its aural wings were clipped and I was left feeling let down and profoundly disappointed because the voice is there, it is just hemmed in by far too much production and the need to stamp out yet another mediocre formulaic Popular CD for mass consumption. 

Sorry Simon I am not buying it, so far.  You and Clive (Davis) have pasteurized homogenized Ms Lewis to the point dullness petting heavily with boredom.