The Saturdays' 'Wordshaker': a first-impressions sort of review

We got The Saturdays' new album 'Wordshaker' sent over yesterday, and while listening to it we gave each song a star rating in iTunes.

 

http://www.popjustice.com/images/stories/j/saturdayswordshakerreview.jpg

 

Please don't consider this a definitive review - scores may go up as well as down over the coming weeks - but as a first impression this averages out as a just-under-four-star album. It's yet to totally click, a couple of songs try a little too hard while others don't try quite hard enough, but this is all the sort of stuff that begins to make sense over repeated listens.

 

Give us a poke in a week or so and we'll add some further thoughts.

http://www.popjustice.com/index.php?option...&Itemid=206

Edited September 23, 200915 yr by Theo Aloud

http://www.authoritydesign.com/saturdays/thesaturdays_wordshaker_600.jpg

 

From the mailer just sent out :)

 

 

I can't see Wordshaker at all.

 

 

I wonder if Chasing Lights was actually written on the cover for the last album but you couldn't see it.

I thought Popjustice bummed Forever Is Over? Oh well....

 

So a decent enough rating from PJ on the whole then, they're idea of a what a 3 star album is very differenr from mine tbh

 

Loving that cover a lot more now its in HQ or whatever letters there are to describe a picture in better quality.

If Forever Is Over is only 2 stars the rest of the album must be absolutely amazing.

Hate the artwork to be honest, I agree with what others have said, the old font they had was much better.

I can't see Wordshaker at all.

I wonder if Chasing Lights was actually written on the cover for the last album but you couldn't see it.

You can't see Wordshaker on the cover? :o

I went to The Saturdays album listening party this evening, album was played over many times and the girls were there for about an hour and half chatting to everyone, signing things and taking pictures. They're all such lovely people and it was an awesome experience. Una's gorgeous new dog was there, it had an accident towards the end of the evening and you should have seen Una's face, hilarious! Good job her boyfriend was there to clean up!

 

Songs that really stood out for me were Wordshaker, it sounds more rocky than it did on the tour, along with Open Up and Deeper. Open Up is absolutely gorgeous, after tonight I'd say so far it's my favourite although that could change when I get into listening to it more in depth come October 12th. Very excited! A lot of people said they thought the Forever Is Over album version was quite different, it has more of an intro and ending than the single version. Personally I didn't notice any major changes but then again I'm not very observant.

Edited September 23, 200915 yr by NatalieMT

Thanks for that Natalie! Heard about Jackson's little accident :rofl:

 

Very keen to hear Deeper knowing the girls were involved in writing it!

 

 

Thanka Natalie. God, i really wish i could have gone to a listening party.

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Cant wait to hear the rockier version of Wordshaker

 

Would you say its a better album than Chasing Lights, on or par or not as good?

Rochelle was asking everyone whether they thought this album was better than Chasing Lights and I said yes and genuinely meant it. From what I heard it's much more put together, flows better as an album and has some really awesome and memorable lyrics. I'd say there wasn't a track I particularly disliked.

 

I mainly spoke to Una as we were discussing her EP. I saw her a few years ago when she performed at The Bedford as a solo artist and we got talking about the owner Tony Moore and how I'd been introduced to The Bedford by Lucie Silvas as she used to perform there a lot. It then turned out Mollie used to be Lucie's neighbour in Thames Ditton and they all knew her too! Una signed my EP again too, even though she'd already signed it back at The Bedford. I think she was quite amazed I'd been there that night!

 

There were quite a few paps there tonight waiting outside afterwards, which did surprise me, Mollie in particular got followed to her car so I'm sure come tomorrow pictures will be in a few places.

Wow, I think I'd go all loonish and not be able to sit and have a proper conversation with the girls :heehee:

I was trying to hold it together, but I'd met them a few times before and knew they were all very pleasant and warm people, so I just spoke to them how I would anyone else. I was mainly panicked because I'd rushed to get to the venue on time plus I'm a God awful driver and took so many wrong turnings along the way. I only found out I had a place on the guestlist at 5.45pm and the event started at 6.30pm! Manic!

 

 

Oh dear, seeing this makes me very sad :(

 

http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/9886/word.jpg

Miles better! Who made it?

Miles better! Who made it?

 

Someone over on PJ.

 

So good PJ even put it on the front page of the site.

 

Fascination have really f***ed this up along with Cheryl's font on her artwork too.

Glas to hear about the album Natalie. I really loved Chasing Lights (though i think the quality dipped a bit towards the end) so if this is a better album it must be amazing

 

It is a shame about the font i agree. They had a very nice one.

Can't wait to hear this album now!

That cover is way better! Although after seeing the cover in HQ, it has grown on me.

The Saturdays - Wordshaker album review

 

OK, I’m going to break this to you gently… there are no tracks on Wordshaker that are as good as Up. But it’s not all bad news. Because there are about 10 tracks on Wordshaker that are literally very nearly almost as good as Up whilst sounding nothing like it. And that’s about 10 more than were on Chasing Lights. Huzzah.

 

We’ve been wanting The Saturdays to be amazing for about as long as we knew they existed. Personality-wise, they might not be setting us on fire yet but Wordshaker (despite sounding like a prototype name for the game Boggle) is a very fine sophomore album indeed. Why Forever Is Over, a stab at pop-rock so soft it’s practically a cuddly toy, was chosen as the lead single when it’s probably the weakest track remains a mystery – so if you actually quite like Forever Is Over, imagine how happy you’ll be to discover that every one of the eleven other tracks is substantially better than it. Huzzah again.

 

The overall sound of the album might not have shifted seismically from Chasing Lights – basically the many many ballads have gone up a gear to become midtempo instead – but thankfully the overdose on schmaltz is long gone and Wordshaker’s big ballad moment, Here Standing, is properly gorgeous. In our review of Chasing Lights, we implored the girls to unleash their fierce side more often and on the likes of Ego, One Shot and Open Up, boy do they deliver – pop choons with the perfect sprinkling of rocky rhythms and electro twiddles on top, lyrics that require voices set to ‘belt’ rather than ‘simper’ and Vanessa’s powerhouse vocals to see them soaring through.

 

Elsewhere Wordshaker is revealed not as an educational game but a liar who twists words and the resulting song is the album’s feisty fantastic highlight whilst Lose Control, an explosion of ‘oooo-ooooohs’, “talky bits” and electro-esque squelching, is my personal favourite. When the saccharine finally rears its head on the closer 2am (alas, not a prequel to Busted’s still epic 3am), it’s actually welcome; simply lovely, it’s Wordshaker’s Why Me, Why Now and you can’t help falling in love with it. Well, I couldn’t anyway.

 

Some tracks (Denial, Not Good Enough) sound a little generic in that they seem instantly familiar – but that’s not necessarily a bad thing, just a sign that they have been crafted well enough to get stuck in your head almost immediately. As the Sugababes implode, this is the kind of album we could imagine a diluted Sugababes v2.0 recording, except that comparison really does Wordshaker no justice whatsoever. Come the second album, The Saturdays have found their own sound and guess what? It’s great. Heaven knows how good album three might be. What I do know is that Wordshaker is probably the pop album of the year.

 

http://www.teentoday.co.uk/images/uploads/4_star.jpg

 

http://www.teentoday.co.uk/article/the-sat...wordshaker-000/