If you’re going to be a successful pop singer, you’ve got to be unique or relatable. Both, if you can help it. But to fall somewhere in between the extremes is to miss the point, and unless you’ve got a truly remarkable voice, miss your audience.
DzԻDz’ is firmly an everywoman pop singer. A former journalist, she comes from a working background, and her music carries the same heart-strung concerns as many women and men in lengthy relationships. On her new album, Ware explores the long haul of love and whether itap worth it (“Tough Love”), the hook-ups we use as shelter from the storm (“Kind Of…Sometimes…Maybe”), and breaks down to the minute gestures of love, as in the Ed Sheeran co-written “Say You Love Me.”
Ware brims with confidence on “Tough Love.” While “Devotion” showed her promise, her voice is laid bare atop the music on her sophomore album, with less modulation to hide behind than there was on her debut. Itap evocative, and while no where near as head-turning as, say, Adele, Ware’s pipes prove capable of EQ-peaking heights, as on “Champagne Kisses” and the album’s rightful centerpiece, “Tough Love.”
But as impressive as Ware sounds throughout “Tough Love,” it’s the production that seizes the spotlight. Many will be introduced to it from the radio, but the album is an immense listen on headphones. You might not notice the choral swells in “Say You Love Me” or the strings propelling “Cruel” on the first listen, but these and many other lush details make themselves known on repeat listens. Leave it to producer duo BenZel— which includes Benny Blanco, writer of some of the —to make a solid pop album a good bet for a cross-over success.
Thatap just what Ware works towards with “Tough Love.” The album will go a long way towards snagging her a marketshare of the pop-loving masses, and sets up her inevitable third album as a shot at real mainstream success. The trick now will be finding new ways to say the same things, which anyone in a long-term relationship can relate to.
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Dylan Owens is Reverb’s all-purpose news blogger and album reviewer. You can read more from him on his website, or the comment sections of WORLDSTARHIPHOP.
