Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By Khalid, Right Hand Music Group/RCA Records/Sony Music 2019.
Khalid’s debut album, American Teen (2017), was an international hit and stayed in the Billboard Top 200 chart for 60 weeks.
Free Spirit is his much anticipated follow-up.
As is the way these days, a number of tracks from the album have already been released as singles.
My Bad, Self, Talk and Better have received quite a lot of air time with Better already achieving 3X Platinum sales.
Earlier this month Khalid announced the big screen premier of a companion film to the album of the same title which was distributed by Trafalgar and was screened in cinemas worldwide so the record companies have gone all out in their promotion of the album.
I find the album to be interesting but I must admit I wonder why Khalid is gaining so much attention and being touted as a pop prodigy.
I don’t know why he has been given such prominence over other artists that I believe are equally deserving.
The songs are well crafted pop pieces and Khalid is obviously a talented singer and writer but they don’t come across as being so much better than many others or revolutionary and ploughing new ground.
In fact I find them to be predictable but pleasant, with the possible exception of the track Paradise which has been recorded with a heavily phased backing track that unsettles the senses and works against the concept of paradise.
This track stood out from the rest which blend together and are hard to differentiate.
Another part of the publicity for the album is the Freespiritvan which will be travelling to Melbourne, Canberra and Sydney to hand out free Khalid goodies to fans, where of course they will also be able to purchase the album and go into the running to win free tickets to Khalid’s next Australian tour.
This is a very expensive promotional campaign and I wonder whether the record companies will recoup their costs.
They must be confident because they’ve pulled out all the stops.
