After passing the ripe old age of 17, Selena Gomez was faced with quite a bit of pressure to release her debut album. Taking into account that "Kiss & Tell" was released in the fall of 2009, when her best friend Demi Lovato already released her sophomore album, and a widely panned performance on Dancing With the Stars, some cautionary measures were essential into making Gomez's debut album a testament that she could be a successful actress and singer. The first, and most obvious, was realizing that she wasn't going to be musically successful on her own, so she hired a back-up band called The Scene to help her out. And since this is an album from a Disney actress released in the late 2000s, there are also several other collaborators on board (Gina Schock from The Go-Gos gets three writing credits here, as well as FeFe Dobson and Hollywood Records regulars Antonio Armato and Tim James). So much effort is used because so much effort is needed, as that cringe-tastic performance on DWTS proved, Gomez may be convincing on television, but her on record persona is hollow, showing not a sliver of a tangible personality. Adding fuel to the fire is the simple fact that Gomez is an actress first, her vocal abilities are slight and limited, not able to take on big, blown-out productions as seen on other Disney efforts.
But she lucks out in one regard: her writers and producers are canny enough to realize all of her flaws, so they create a setting in which her voice can fit in with the production. With the loud opening guitar riff aside, much of "Kiss & Tell" is a tempered set that never over-indulges in drippy emotions or garish production, it perfectly glides on a electro-rock pulse. Selena is fortunate enough to have skilled people behind the booth that can mask her vocal deficiencies while dressing her in a formulated personality so all she has to do is lay her voice down. As with any Disney album, "Kiss & Tell" delivers its required payload of fun, frothy teen-pop. "Falling Down" is a pretty good kiss-off to bullies, while "Naturally" is a shiny dance-pop confection that's easily the most well-formed and best track here. That's "Kiss & Tell" at its best; at its worst, however, it feels like Selena is just being dressed in pop hand-me-downs. There's the fifth track "Crush", which could of easily been lifted from Demi Lovato's debut, while "Stop & Erase" is essentially a harder, colder version of Aly and AJ's "Sticks and Stones". That's not to say that they're executed poorly, but the problem is that they have been done before, and by better singers. Then again, this isn't entirely Gomez's fault, as she's hardly in control here; her face is on the cover, but she's not at this album's center, she's simply the face of a carefully calibrated pop machine. The younger version of Britney, if you will (a comparison driven home by the ballad "The Way I Loved You", a vapid, cheesy, and vocally displeasing song that's easily one of the worst ballads ever recorded). All this calculation means that nothing is left to chance, "Kiss & Tell" is a Disney album and hits all the marks that a pop album in 2009 should. Since Kelly Clarkson released her sugar-coated "All I Ever Wanted", Ashley Tisdale brought back early 2000s teen-pop with "Guilty Pleasure", and of course Demi Lovato put out her pop-rock extravaganza "Here We Go Again", Selena follows the path of her peers to get her mark on the already cluttered Disney map. However, without all the calculations, she wouldn't have wound up with such a sturdy pop album. It thankfully doesn't crumble under the weight of its high-fructose confections, it may drag in the middle (due to that turgid ballad), but it doesn't detract from what's otherwise a fun, breezy blast. Bottom line, this is neither a great nor poor album from a Disney actress; it's decent, just like the rest of them.
Recommended Tracks in Bold:
1. Kiss & Tell 2. I Won’t
Apologize 3. Falling Down
4. I Promise You 5.
Crush 6. Naturally
7. The Way I Loved You 8. More 9.
As a Blonde
10. I Don’t Miss You At All 11. Stop & Erase 12. I Got
U
13. Tell Me Something I Don’t Know
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