Natasha Bedingfield: Pocketful Of Sunshine : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

England's Natasha Bedingfield became a star overseas thanks partly to smitten songs like "These Words," a bright dance-pop number in which the big-voiced Christian sang "I love you" thirty-three times. On Pocketful of Sunshine, her second U.S. release, Bedingfield is still love-struck: Judging by exuberant cuts like the lead single, "Love Like This," she must be, like, the happiest person alive. Unfortunate as Bedingfield's bubbliness can be, Pocketful of Sunshine is serviceable: long on catchy, professional-grade melodies and dance beats, annoying only in spots. Add some sad-eyed ballads and solid R&B — "Piece of Your Heart" is a dark, brassy thing in which Bedingfield makes demands of a prospective boyfriend over live funk — and you have an American Idol album with better hooks, more palatable cheese and less melisma. Bedingfield doesn't have much to say. But the packaging in which she wraps her openhearted thoughts makes Sunshine a decent little pop record.