Jordin Sparks: 'Jordin Sparks'

Because she's a wide-eyed, mighty-lunged innocent who won her nation's biggest reality show, it's tempting to compare Jordin Sparks, the youngest ever winner of American Idol, to our very own Leona. Sadly, Sparks doesn't quite have Lewis' buzz. Whereas the British girl began her pop odyssey with a bang, all smashed sales records and proclamations of greatness from Simon Cowell, Sparks got off to a rather more subdued start. In fact, her debut album has stalled at number ten on the US album chart – the worst ever performance from a reigning AmIdol champ.

This is a bit of a shame for Sparks, a sweet, likeable performer with a decent Mariah-style warble. Her self-titled debut is a valiant attempt to cover all the radio-friendly bases, with a small army of A-list producers (Annie Lennox collaborator Stephen Lipson, Norwegian hitmakers Stargate, Britney Spears knob-twiddlers Bloodshy & Avant and more) steering her from earnest soft rock to folky R&B to strutting electropop… and back again. Sadly, they don't always consider what suits Sparks' wholesome-as-apple-pie personality. That she's pictured in the CD booklet wearing a Mr. Happy T-shirt pretty much says it all.

When the hired hands deliver the R&B-flecked ballads that suit Sparks best, she sings them very well indeed. The likes of 'Next ToYou', 'One Step At A Time' and lead single 'Tattoo' aren't terribly exciting, but their glib, clichéd lyrics are enlivened by impassioned performances from the 18-year-old Arizona gal. Sparks does just as well on the rock-flavoured 'Permanent Monday' and the ludicrously overwrought 'God Loves Ugly', which, as its title suggests, is pretty much a retread of previous self-empowerment hits from TLC and Sugababes.

However, when Sparks' producers usher her towards the dancefloor, the results are awkward and slightly embarrassing. The sexually-charged robo-pop of 'Shy Boy' and 'Young And In Love', decent songs both, would sound fantastic on Britney Spears' Blackout album or Janet Jackson's recent Discipline collection, but Sparks is too much of a girl-next-door to play the vodka-swilling nymphette. When she sings: "You're messing with a tomboy, might just knock you out like a schoolboy" on 'Shy Boy', it's hard not to wonder whether June Whitfield would do a better job at sounding convincingly tough-yet-sexy.

All this adds up to an album that falls slap bang in the middle of tremendous and terrible - in other words, thoroughly OK. Fortunately, Sparks has an ace up her sleeve. 'No Air', the album's standout track, is an appealing melodramatic duet with Chris Brown that practically invents a sub-genre all of its own: the R&B power ballad. Already a smash across the pond, it should buy Sparks the chance to make a rather more focused album next time around.