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Down to Earth's title depicts Jem as a grounded musician, but its wide-ranging sound suggests something different, as the singer has yet to find a style that fully suits her capabilities. Fortunately, her search for the perfect genre still yields some enjoyable songs, as shown by this album's handful of standout tracks.
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Jem's Dido-like vocals are consistently a soothing treat, but on the whole there's a sultriness and spark missing from the material.
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It’s every bit as uneven as that bracing debut.
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Q MagazineThis follow-up is still falls between Dido's mild AOR and Lily Allen's bouncier moments while being as memorable as neither. [Mar 2009, p.101]
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She layers airy, tightly harmonized vocal hooks over sleek synths, strummy guitars, and booming hip-hop beats, and the songs broadcast their emotional content--anxiety, melancholy, resilience--with a straightforwardness you rarely hear outside children’s music. That simplicity doesn’t detract from the ample melodic and textural pleasures, but it does give Down to Earth a limited shelf life.
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Though it's utterly sumptuous, and occasionally sizzling, the album has been divested of the spook-pop quality that made the debut stand out, replacing it with excessive tastefulness.
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UncutThe languid vocal delivery does little to dispel the Dido comparisions of old, the polite and impassionate tones irking the listener even in the smallest does. [Mar 2009, p.89]
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