Battlefield [Bonus Tracks]

Personnel: Jordin Sparks (background vocals); Toby Gad (various instruments); Ryan Tedder (guitar, keyboards, programming, background vocals); Dapo Torimiro (guitar, keyboards, programming); Andrew Hey, Ian Dench, Greg Hagan (guitar); Jonas Jeberg, Wayne Wilkins (keyboards, programming); Don-E (keyboards); Eric Darken, Mich Hedin Hansen (percussion); Adam Smith , Sam Mizell (programming); Dameon Aranda, Keely Hawkes, Lauren Evans (background vocals).
Audio Mixers: Sam Watters; Manny Marroquin; Dapo Torimiro; Pete Hofman; Phil Tan; Scott Cutler; Serban Ghenea; Toby Gad.
Recording information: Annetenna Studios, Burbank, CA; Battery Studios, New York, NY; DMP Studios; Homesite 13, Novato, CA; Legacy Studios, New York, NY; Mason Sound, North Hollywood, CA; Side 3 Studios, Denver, CO; The Record Plant, Los Angeles, CA; The Sound Kitchen, Nashville, TN; Westlake Audio, Los Angeles, CA.
Photographer: Mark Liddell.
Arranger: Toby Gad.
Jordin Sparks didn't get any traction until she received a boost from Chris Brown via their duet "No Air," the one moment on her 2007 eponymous debut that felt unquestionably modern, so it makes perfect sense that her second album, BATTLEFIELD, ditches almost all lingering American Idol pageantry for stylized pop and R&B pitched halfway between Rihanna (whose "S.O.S." is rewritten here, with Shannon's "Let the Music Play" substituted for "Tainted Love") and Leona Lewis. Here, she hires some of 2009's biggest hitmakers, including T-Pain and OneRepublic's Ryan Tedder. Most of these namebrands are recordmakers, not songwriters, so it's not a great surprise to find BATTLFIELD bears a slick production that's almost all treble, bass and rhythmic hooks. This doesn't apply quite as strongly to the clutch of Sparks' collaborations grouped toward the end of the album--all ballads, some with vaguely spiritual overtones such as "Faith,"--but for the first two-thirds of Battlefield, it's all a cool calculated assault where Jordin seems almost incidental to the creation of the sound. Because the sound is of paramount importance, this does succeed as pure radio-ready product, which is enough for Sparks to sustain her momentum if not enough to give her some kind of identity to build a career upon.