By: Sarah DeNunzio//
Demi Lovato has easily released the best album of her career thus far with Tell Me You Love Me, which dropped last Friday, September 29th. While 2015’s Confident earned the pop superstar a Grammy Nomination for Best Pop Album, Tell Me You Love Me is an obvious contender with a huge possibility of taking home a Grammy this upcoming year.
Tell Me You Love Me is very different from Confident because it’s more soulful and shows off Demi’s fantastic vocal range. Confident is by no means a bad album, however, Demi thrives on the more soulful, less EDM-infused pop that she brings to the table on Tell Me You Love Me.
The only song on the album featuring EDM, “Daddy Issues,” is a highlight. The beat in the chorus sounds like an arcade game gone wild; it’s a surprisingly inventive track that shows Demi at her most vulnerable. She sings about her addiction to dating the wrong type of men, who are “unavailable” while she’s “insatiable.” She blames her “daddy issues” for this habit, “Lucky for you, I got all these daddy issues/what can I do?/I’m going crazy when I’m with you/Forget all the therapy that I’ve been through.”
While “Daddy Issues,” “Sorry Not Sorry,” “Sexy Dirty Love,” “Cry Baby,” and “Games” are more up-tempo, Demi slows it down for many of the album’s tracks. The title track, “Tell Me You Love Me,” is the perfect example. This ballad showcases Lovato’s bravado while she sings about needing to be in a relationship in order to feel content with her life.
Other stand-out ballads on the album are “You Don’t Do It For Me Anymore,” where the title speaks for itself, “Ruin The Friendship,” where Lovato sings about wanting to take a step further with a close friend (many are speculating that friend is Nick Jonas), “Lonely,” where Lil Wayne makes an appearance, and “Concentrate,” a song that could easily be in another Fifty Shades movie.
Overall, Tell Me You Love Me is a solid album from Demi Lovato and by far her best album since crossing over to pop music. Coming from someone who claimed she was thinking about quitting music last year, Lovato came back strong and delivered an album that will win over new fans and further impress the Grammy committee.
Tell Me You Love Me was released originally with twelve tracks, which is what this review is based on. The Tell Me You Love Me (Deluxe Version) includes acoustic versions of Lovato’s collaborations with Cheat Codes’ “No Promises” and Jax Jones’ “Instruction” as well as an acoustic version of her Top 10 hit, “Sorry Not Sorry.” An exclusive version was released to Target with two bonus tracks, “Ready For Ya,” an up-tempo song where Lovato admits that she wasn’t ready for a relationship, but the subject of the song broke through her walls and “saved my life,” and “Smoke and Mirrors,” a beautiful ballad where Demi ponders whether a former lover ever really loved her and whether she was really in love and happy in the relationship.
The Target exclusive edition is the one to buy because “Ready For Ya” and “Smoke and Mirrors” are both fantastic tracks and worth the extra money. Besides, who wouldn’t want as many songs in an album as you can get?
Top tracks: “Sexy Dirty Love,” “Daddy Issues,” “Cry Baby,” “Lonely.”
