A lot can happen in a year — in seven years, even more. For English singer-songwriter Jessica Ellen Cornish, who goes by Jessie J, the hiatus between her last and latest record included heartbreak and personal battles, such as a miscarriage and a breakup. Now, on her sixth studio album, “Don’t Tease Me With A Good Time,” released on Nov. 28, Jessie J makes her comeback. In a whirlwind of vocal prowess, sporadic vulnerability and confused sonic direction, Jessie J crafts a record that admirably attempts to bare her struggles but falls flat in its thematic messiness and unoriginality.
The record begins with “FEEL IT ON ME,” in which Jessie J describes the push and pull of a toxic relationship she cannot bring herself to end. After she sings in a beautiful, vocally twirling solo, Jessie J begins expressing her conflicting emotions of frustration and guilt with staying with a lover who does nothing but hurt her. “Complain I get burned / But I stand so close to the flame,” Jessie J sings, deprecating herself over her inability to do what is right for her. Both in this track and throughout the record, Jessie J struggles to provide lyrics that scratch beyond the surface of the specific emotion she aims to convey. She sings in trite, vague metaphors that crumble into lyrical nothingness with even the slightest thought. “You couldn’t hear me / And I couldn’t feel you,” Jessie J sings, describing a painful emotional distance in basic, uninspired terms that match the bland background instrumentals. Yet Jessie J’s voice agility entrances listeners, allowing them to bob their heads to the beat, even if its lyrics beg for an unengaged listen.
“I DON’T CARE” builds on the same theme of emotional betrayal. Opening with a brooding guitar solo, the track provides a relatively simple scene: the singer leaves her lover in a fit of frustration. “See my eyes, they’re rollin’ (See my eyes) / Chasing, but I’m goin’,” Jessie J sings, mocking the ineptitude of her ex while she leaves him. Her vocals, winding up and down scales in almost superhuman fashion, are intricate; her lyrics, however, are not. Even though the track offers sonic cohesion, with a dark, acoustic soundscape, the song feels stilted — just interesting enough for listless listening and the occasional eyebrow raise at how well she can sing. With a prolonged, entirely jarring pause in the song’s middle, “I DON’T CARE” attempts to be a defiant “dump him” track but feels half-finished.
On the smooth, sauntering “NO SECRETS,” however, Jessie J shines, finally matching the quality of her voice to her soundscape and lyrics. The track takes a left turn, no longer relying on prepackaged synths and drum loops. Jessie J favors R&B instrumentals instead, incorporating a lush beat and distant vocals reminiscent of SZA. Jessie J sings about the expectations she faces in the spotlight and her internal struggle to balance fame with honesty toward herself and her fans. “Tell 'em all or tell 'em nothing (Yeah, nothing) / Keep it real or keep it funny (Yeah, funny),” Jessie J sings, describing the pressure to be either vulnerable or amusing, but never both. Jessie J offers an intriguing view into her struggles as a star, no longer hiding behind pitch-perfect production, giving her listeners something rawer and, consequently, more engaging.
The song’s addictive and mellow chorus finds Jessie J discussing feeling isolated while being forced to publicize her love life: “Why put it on the internet? / Whole life is online, no secrets,” Jessie J sings. Confronting people’s expectations for her to forgo her privacy, she taps into the downsides of stardom with previously unseen emotional depth. In a mildly interesting metaphor, Jessie J compares the stickiness of fame to honey — a trap she fell into and now struggles to escape from. The rhetorical questions scattered throughout the track keep the tone unserious, dulling any emotional gut-punch. Still, “NO SECRETS” serves as a welcome palate cleanser to repetitive pop beats and half-hearted witticisms, offering lines that feel both genuine and exceptionally personal.
With stronger production and more captivating lyrics, “I’LL NEVER KNOW WHY” and “COMPLICATED” remind listeners that Jessie J thrives when she trades mainstream appeal for emotionality. The delicate strings, gorgeous piano solo and beautiful vocals on “I’LL NEVER KNOW WHY” genuinely move the listener, along with heart-wrenching lyrics that poignantly describe Jessie J’s feelings about her lover deserting her. The track is affecting, even if it does not succeed in conveying the emotional breakdown its lyrics allude to.
On “COMPLICATED,” Jessie J discusses the ups and downs of her friendships and relationships over time. She does not take herself too seriously and her sarcasm serves as a warm touch to an otherwise depressing track, providing a unique, touching and almost necessary lens into Jessie J’s self-perception. But the song’s vulnerability only lasts a few seconds, and the boisterous chorus and endlessly impressive riffs do not make up for a missed opportunity in expanding beyond a rudimentary pop sound.
“LIVING MY BEST LIFE” and “H.A.P.P.Y” continue the album’s trend of sugar-sweet lyrics and low-effort production. On “LIVING MY BEST LIFE,” Jessie J harnesses her newfound euphoria and brings it to the dance floor, with a blistering beat accompanying cookie-cutter lyrics: “Yeah, I got the moves, heart’s racing, I feel the rush,” Jessie J sings. And on “H.A.P.P.Y,” the record’s worst offender of unoriginality, she quite literally spells out her happiness word for word, with lyrics so ludicrously joyous that they call into question the validity of the record’s occasional moments of lucidity.
On “Don’t Tease Me With A Good Time,” nuanced moments of gentle deliveries and beautiful transparency fall in the shadow of overbearing sound, big choruses, vocals, synths and ideas distilled to their blandest lyrical translations. Each track’s disengaging nature makes it hard to stay on any one song for more than a few verses, forcing the listener to smile and nod along before skipping as the music leaves little emotional impact. Amid the confusion of heartbreak and grief, emotions can be difficult to sort out, let alone process — but on this record, Jessie J does neither.
Hunter Buchheit (he/him) (28B) is majoring in U.S. History and Business. He loves writing about music, Emory events and politics, and in his free time enjoys playing piano, running and spending hours crafting the perfect Spotify playlist.
