Album Review: Ciara Basic Instinct

Ciara. Photo / Supplied

Rating: 2/5
Verdict: She should have stuck to the cameo

Some people don't know how to go out on a high. Ciara is one of them. Strip her of Missy Elliot and her ex Bow Wow and she is - well, yes an attractive person, but this is not a visual album - dull. And not only that, but highly annoying.

Ciara leapt up the cool charts when she released that booty-shaking hit 1, 2 Step with Missy Elliott as part of her first solo album Goodies. But, six years down the track it seems she is lacking some of that zest, and her fourth album sounds like little more than a half-hearted effort to put an updated photograph of herself on a cover.

Sandwiched in the middle is a track titled Yeah I Know which comprises Ciara layering a lot of sexy "yeahs" over a few only moderately tuneful synthetic chords and rhyming "know" with "no".

Gimme Dat does award the album a couple of points for exhibiting the most energy and for its juicier lyrics, while the bass-heavy lead single Ride is saved by Ludacris in a rap cameo but the title track (U Got Me) is just a foul-mouthed, angry song without a hook.

Basic instinct would suggest that Ciara would have been better off holding off on this album until she had something - anything - meatier, or perhaps just hold off releasing it at all.

-TimeOut