Album Review: Emily King - "East Side Story"

Emily King may only be 22 years old, but she's far from a silly girl making empty music. Her songs contain a mental, vocal and emotional maturity far beyond her years. On her debut album, East Side Story, Emily comes across as a bright, intelligent vocalist, one who has no problems articulating herself. The album tackles many subjects - subjects that many people can relate to - including growing up as a biracial child, overcoming physical and mental abuse, falling in love, falling out of love and dealing with loneliness. The vocals and music are hit-and-miss, but East Side Story's lyrics are consistently compelling.

East Side Story is almost like an audio diary, since there's so many very personal thoughts and emotions inside it. One of the most personal songs is "Colorblind," about Emily's turbulent early life as the child of a black man and white woman: "I used to think I was the same as everyone, 'til one day I heard a word that turned it all around. Came home from school one day confused with who I was, I didn't understand the hatred I had found."

And on "You Can Get By," she encourages a woman to escape an abusive relationship: "Hey baby you're gonna be okay, but that's not love that's hurting you. So pick yourself up off the floor, that's no way for you to fly," she sings.

This mainly acoustic album goes totally against the grain of what's popular in contemporary R&B, but for that Emily King deserves kudos. Instead of making the glossy type of dance music that's ultimately forgotten about pretty quickly, she chose to make a unique and real - really real - album about her life and times on New York City's East Side.

On the minus side, Emily's vocals have a tendency to be a little bland on some songs and her vocal range is apparently limited. Also, the song production is a little too generic and low-key for its own good. The album's all-around best song is the first single, "Walk in My Shoes." It's the rare song on the album that's got great production and vocals to match the excellent lyrics. If more songs on East Side Story had the emotion and attitude that "Walk in My Shoes" displays, this would be an outstanding album. But even still, Emily's debut is still pretty good.