Jessie James - Jessie James (CD)

All Music Guide

Forget all the marketing bluster and sampled banjo loops: Jessie James is in no way a country singer, she's a Christina Aguilera wannabe in tight blue jeans and tall cowboy boots, belting out songs cowritten by Kara DioGuardi and Katy Perry and constructed in ProTools. Like the girlkissing Perry, James revels in creating the perception that she's a sexy bad girl, leaning hard on singleentendre flirtations and shopworn jokes, pulling out the classic "is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me" on "Bullet," one of two cuts cowritten by Perry. Jessie James manages to create some heat, but not enough to disguise how she, like her idols Xtina and Katy, is a complete show biz kid doing whatever she can to be a star. Fortunately, Jessie's also picked up (perhaps unwittingly) on the underlying oddness of Aguilera and Perry, turning out purportedly mainstream pop that puts together familiar ingredients in weirdly appealing ways. Jessie struts in her "Blue Jeans," a tight rhyth...mic chat, turns out the best homage to early Christina Aguilera with the great first single "Wanted," delves deeply into the weird with the vaguely ominous "Psycho Girlfriend," and the shimmering, minorkey "Girl Next Door," another Katy Perry cowrite that oddly recalls Kate Bush. These are inspired, original pop, and, of course, nowhere near country music but, hey, putting on a sassy country girl act is what it takes to get Jessie James into the game, that's fine because the best moments of Jessie James suggest that she could wind up as enjoyably odd as her inspirations. - Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide Read more Less