| Product Summary | | Label: Topics Entertainment | | UPC: 00886970255424 | | Release Date: 4/8/2008 | | Buy.com Sku: 207501688 | | Item#: M42VVN | | Buy.com Sales Rank: 25050 | Format:  CD |
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| Song Listing |  |
Disc 1
| | Song Title | Sample | | 1. Bleeding Love ~ Leona Lewis |  | | 2. Better In Time ~ Leona Lewis | | | 3. I Will Be ~ Leona Lewis | | | 4. I'm You ~ Leona Lewis | | | 5. Forgive Me ~ Leona Lewis | | | 6. Misses Glass ~ Leona Lewis | | | 7. Angel ~ Leona Lewis | | | 8. First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, The ~ Leona Lewis | | | 9. Yesterday ~ Leona Lewis | | | 10. Whatever It Takes ~ Leona Lewis | | | 11. Take a Bow ~ Leona Lewis | | | 12. Footprints In the Sand ~ Leona Lewis | | | 13. Here I Am ~ Leona Lewis | |
| | Every once in a while, an artist comes along whose talent is so undeniable that it inspires everyone who encounters it. British singer and songwriter Leona Lewis is such an artist. Her striking beauty, charmingly down-to-earth personality, and huge, soaring voice has taken over the UK, where her debut Spirit entered the album chart at Number One and became Britain’s fastest-selling debut of all time.
Spirit’s lead-off single “Bleeding Love” —co-written and produced by OneRepublic frontman Ryan “Alias” Tedder — claimed the Number One spot for seven weeks, and the album sold over 1 million copies in the UK in just 5 weeks. Ushering in 2008, Leona received four prestigious Brit Award nominations, the UK equivalent of the Grammy Awards.
Spirit was written and produced by an array of top-notch hit-makers, the album is a showcase for Lewis’ powerhouse voice — which has evoked comparisons to Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, and Céline Dion. (Warned Entertainment Weekly: “Divas, watch out!”)
“Those women are the true divas,” Lewis insists. “They’re amazing performers whom I’ve listened to for years. These are the people who’ve inspired me to sing, so it’s flattering that I’m being compared to them. But I have a lot of hard work to do first!”
| | Album Notes and Credits |
Notes & Personnel Info |  | British popster Leona Lewis became a superstar in the U.K. after winning on the TV program X Factor, releasing the chart-ruling hit single "Bleeding Love," and following up with a full-length debut that broke British sales records. That album, SPIRIT, hit America in the spring of 2008. The album is full of bubbly pop and R&B that might elicit comparisons with the music of Mariah Carey or Alicia Keys. Lewis received no shortage of help from industry heavy-hitters, including OneRepublic frontman Ryan Tedder (who co-wrote "Bleeding Love"), as well as songwriters Akon, Ne-Yo, Josh Alexander, Stargate, and others. The result is a full dose of radio-ready pop bliss that's sure to spark the interest of America's pop and R&B fans. | | The truest test of Simon Cowell's power within the music industry circa 2008 was not whether American Idol could produce a star in its seventh season or if its U.K. cousin, The X Factor, would have another success in its fifth season -- it was whether he could turn Leona Lewis into the international superstar he so clearly believed she is. Lewis was the third winner of The X Factor -- the Cowell-driven replacement to Pop Idol in Britain, a replacement that came to be because he wanted to own a significant piece of the show -- and one of the key differences between Factor and Idol is that the judges can mentor the contestants and therefore have a stake in the outcome of the show, more than they do on Idol, where the judges merely comment. Rightly impressed by Lewis' multi-octave voice -- reminiscent of a warmer, earthbound Mariah Carey -- Cowell continued his mentorship after the conclusion of the show, making her the first contestant in the whole Idol/Factor enterprise that he personally shepherded through the major-label process. He struck a deal with Clive Davis -- the executive producer behind all the American Idol projects, the producer who publicly bristled when Kelly Clarkson tried to take control of her career through her original compositions -- and the two launched a grand plan to break Lewis in her native U.K. first, then slowly roll her out in the U.S. a few months later, via an appearance on Oprah and a slightly re-sequenced and remixed version of her debut, Spirit. | | That U.S. version drops the bonus track of Leona's version of "A Moment Like This," her first hit single that is not so coincidentally a cover of Kelly's first big single. If Kelly became a thorn in Davis' side, Leona Lewis seems happy, even eager, to play the major-label game, singing anything that comes her way, never lodging a complaint when she has to cut a couple R&B-flavored tracks to appeal to the American market. These tunes -- "Misses Glass" and "Forgive Me" -- are just slightly glitzier than the rest of Spirit, surely bearing heavier rhythms but not to the extent that the beats obscure Lewis' voice, as the whole point of Spirit is to showcase her singing, particularly those high glory notes that are all the rage on Idol/Factor. Unlike most Idol/Factor alumni, Lewis can hit those big notes but make it seem easy, never straining her voice and building nicely to the climax. Unlike most divas, there is a human quality to her voice, as she's singing to the song, not singing to her voice. Then again, this was also true of Mariah Carey on her 1990 debut, which Spirit greatly resembles in how the handful of R&B-oriented songs camouflages how this is almost entirely a stuffy middle-of-the-road pop record. Not only that, but Spirit is so old-fashioned it sounds as if it could have been released in 1990 and compete with Carey's debut for the top of the charts; her first single, "Bleeding Love," opens with a crawling organ that recalls the muted gospel of "Vision of Love," even if the skin-crawling lyric "you cut me open and I keep bleeding love" wouldn't have suited the Top 40 in 1990. | | That stultifying adult contemporary atmosphere may makes Spirit stilted, but it's also as savvy a move as you could expect from Cowell: ever since Mariah long ago abandoned AC for the clubs, there has been a gaping need for a vocalist like Leona Lewis, a singer who can belt it out but is safe and tame, having no interest in the perks of stardom that exist beyond the stage. And boy is Leona Lewis ever that -- she is blessed with a terrific voice but very little on-record personality, something the very professional, very inoffensive tunes emphasize. Thanks to this collection of calculatingly commercial tracks -- tunes crafted to appeal to everyone yet no one in particular -- Lewis merely comes across as the most talented and most willing singer to ever play Cowell's game, so no wonder he loves her. But this also points out the big difference between how Cowell has taken Leona Lewis under her wing and how Tommy Mottola watched over Mariah. Mottola married Carey, having both an emotional and financial stake in her career, but those mixed emotions helped obscure the machinery that drove her career. Cowell is only in it for the cash with Lewis, so the machinations are too apparent on this otherwise appealing debut. And that's too bad, because Spirit surely reveals a singer who has a richer tonal quality than any diva to come along in the past 15 years or so -- if she had gotten the tunes to match her voice, this would have been a killer record in addition to the international blockbuster that it was so carefully crafted to be. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine |
| Entertainment Reviews
 | Leona Lewis - Spirit: The Deluxe Edition - CD Review By: Jordan Richardson - Blogcritics.org Reviews Published on: 1/28/2009 10:53 AM | | The staggeringly lovely and exceptionally gifted Leona Lewis blew on to the scene dropping Spirit on the UK in late 2007. The album entered the Brit charts at #1 and bloody well became the UK’s fastest-selling debut of all time. Spirit saw a US release in April of 2008 and debuted at #1 on Billboard, making music history with the first appearance of a British female artist entering Billboard’s Top 200 with a #1 record. Not for nothing, Leona also made history as the first British artist to claim the top spot with a debut....read the full review |
| | Artist Overview | | Winner of the third season of THE X FACTOR, England's leading reality-TV talent show, R&B/pop singer Leona Lewis quickly rose to international stardom with the release of her 2007 debut, SPIRIT. With its accessible, Mariah Carey/Whitney Houston-like sound, the album topped the charts in both the U.K. and the U.S., a rare feat, particularly for such a young artist. Lewis's catchy single, "Bleeding Love," written by Ryan Tedder (OneRepublic) and Jesse McCartney, also reached the Number One spot on the charts of every major country on the globe, cementing her status as a true pop phenomenon. |
| | Compilation Appearances |
| | Technical Info | | Release Date : 04/08/2008 | | Original Release Date : 2007 | | Catalog ID : 88697025542 | | Label : J-Records (USA) | | Number of Discs : 1 | | Studio/Live : Studio | | Mono/Stereo : Stereo | | SPAR Code : n/a | | UPC : 00886970255424 |
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