Everything Is 4
Jason Derulo
(Warner Bros)
Three stars
You’ve got to hand it to Jason Derulo.
Even when the 25-year-old pop star is only working part time, he can still deliver one of the year's biggest hits, as was the case with the insidiously catchy Wiggle.
That Snoop Dogg collaboration was his second of two singles he released last year and it did the business by topping multiple charts and adding a knockout punch to his live tour – which included a stop-off on the Abu Dhabi Corniche as part of last year’s Abu Dhabi Formula One Grand Prix celebrations.
With his own victory lap well and truly complete, Derulo has re-emerged with a new album, Everything Is 4. It is a bright and confident work that should go a long way towards silencing critics who deride him as an Usher-lite.
A large part of Derulo's success lies in his lack of fealty to pop or R&B. The charm of his biggest hits, from 2010's Ridin' Solo to 2013's Trumpets, lay in their winning hybrid of styles – and Everything Is 4 continues in that vein.
The opener and lead single, Want to Want Me, gleams with its big hooks and retro-dance sounds – that falsetto hook, however, may sound a little bit too close to Maroon 5's Sugar for comfort.
Things get more 1980s with the broody Cheyenne. The staid synthesised keyboards and throbbing drums could have been sigh-inducing if it wasn't for Derulo once again pulling off another great chorus to rescue the track's deficiencies.
We are back in the club for Get Ugly, which is obnoxious fun with its sliding dirty bass lines and nonsensical lyrics ("jeans so tight, I can see loose change").
The latter problem positively ruins Pull Up – no amount of state-of-the-art production can save a song with lyrics that have you comparing women to your favourite vehicle. "Look at that trunk in the back" is one of the many eye-rolling metaphors on this bomb.
The album’s second half is dedicated to collaborations with a guest list that includes Jennifer Lopez and Stevie Wonder.
The most bizarre is Broke, in which Derulo teams up with Wonder and country artist Keith Urban. It's positively perplexing as it sounds like three wildly divergent songs spliced together – Derulo seems to be channelling Jamie Foxx in Gold Digger, Wonder croons away aimlessly on the bridge, while Urban sounds like he is sitting in the corner playing the banjo.
Fortunately, that awfulness is balanced somewhat by the two closing tracks, the summery JLo hook-up Try Me and the dance-floor-ready X2CU.
Despite the notable misfires, Everything Is 4 shows signs that Derulo's hit streak won't be abating anytime soon.
sasaeed@thenational.ae
