Keyshia Cole

Keyshia Cole has so far been our own time's version of the Weeping Madonna, if Our Lady were terminally ticked off. Cole's songs have examined heartbreak from end to end—even the happier ones have mostly served as a set-up for the inevitable disastrous end—and her rough-edged but powerful voice, which has drawn comparisons to Mary J. Blige's but is slightly less "diva" in sound, has conveyed her pain and tears for two records in a row. So seeing her in an animal-print one piece making sultry eyes at the purchaser and cooing about how she wants to introduce "the sexier side of me" is a little surprising. The title of A Different Me is certainly accurate, but the question is whether it's desired.

Cole has amazing strengths, but boudoir music isn't one of them, and while the record is never terrible, due to Cole's combination of growl and restraint, it lacks the heart of her previous efforts, especially those evidenced on her first album, The Way It Is, which still stands as her best collection of songs to date. Happiness usually fuels wonderful pop music, even to some extent in R&B, but a snappy number about a makeover sags considerably, especially when compared to something like her single "Love," an expression of anguish that rightfully dominated both radio and TV for months. Maybe maturity agrees with her too much.

—Hillary Brown
01.13.08

A Different Me offers more dimensions, from lyrical and production standpoints, than Keyshia Cole's first two albums. Everything she recorded prior to this came from some degree of pain. Even though Just Like You's "Heaven Sent" was as beatific as anything else on the charts throughout 2008, its sentiment came more from a sense of relief in the wake of relationships gone sour, and "Let It Go" was made for the club but dealt with "roaming dogs." Overall, this is Cole's most free-spirited and adventurous album to date, and it is not without its stretches where reach exceeds grasp, like the jazzed-up, over-busy statement of purpose "Make Me Over" and the surprisingly saccharine "This Is Us." Yet there's a core of at least seven songs here that rate as highly as the best from the first two albums, and they're anything but reheated. "Don't Stop" beams with energy and pure, uncomplicated joy. "Oh-Oh, Yeah-Yea" is yearningly seductive, from Cole's pleas to its drawn-out tides of strings. In "Thought You Should Know," she doesn't drop her guard entirely while revealing more vulnerability than ever. "No Other" is the only track that sounds cut from the same cloth as Just Like You, and the resemblance is only in sound, with the equally urgent and sweepingly dramatic "Shoulda Let You Go" a definite reference, but the emotions between the two are starkly contrasting, with regret exchanged for aching desire. Cole pushes herself into new territory and becomes a more versatile songwriter and vocalist in convincing, frequently thrilling, fashion. Here's where the comparisons begin to fade away. ~ Andy Kellman, All Music Guide