Music Review: Kiss & Tell
What Parents Should Know
Parents need to know that KISS & TELL is a typical tween
album, giving clean accounts of common tween concerns like
falling in love and following your dreams.
KISS & TELL is the first full-length album from Selena Gomez, the star of Disney's Wizards of Waverley Place. The long list of songs (20 in all) runs the gamut of topics that most tweens talk about -- such as falling in (and out of) love, setting life goals, and striving to realize them. In terms of questionable content, there's not a lot to be found here: the lyrics contain no swearing, sexual references, or other adult themes. The only thing Gomez is guilty of is having a somewhat pessimistic perspective on love at times, in tracks like "Falling Down" and "Disappear:" "I remember the first time but it wasn't the last time / That you told me you'd take me back / So I'm still wonderin' why it was ever a question / I should've learned my lesson, I keep comin' back, like a heart attack that's always breakin.'"
With a bevy of young female pop singers vying for attention, you've gotta have a pretty exceptional voice to stand out -- and Selena Gomez doesn't. Though she manages to stay on pitch, her vocals lack that certain something, like the punch of Demi Lovato or the purity of Taylor Swift. Unfortunately, Gomez can't even hide behind good music, since the canned arrangements in these songs sound like they're straight out of the drum machine.
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