Imani Coppola remains topper known for her US Top 40 hit, 1997's Legend of A Cowgirl. But after being dropped by Columbia Records when further hits failed to materialise, she set verboten on her own as a sort of DIY pop star, self-releasing her own home-recorded music and making some quite unexpected friends: early Faith No More frontman Mike Patton, for example, who invited Coppola to join his many-limbed pop supergroup Peeping Tom. He then released her fine 2007 solo record The Black And White Album on his label, Ipecac.
Little Jackie � a collaboration between Coppola and producer Adam Pallin � is an unashamedly pop album, a blend of feisty R&B, soul, and funk, although lyrically, it's a issue above to the highest degree records in a similar vein. Witty and with a strong narrative articulation, Coppola is clearly a pretty voguish cookie, falling casually clever rhymes (''It's a typical day in the universe/Another MC spits a puny verse/I taste to receive through my day without saying curse/Cuz I curse too much, and such and such'' goes single girl's anthem 28 Butts) in a seductive, lightly husky drawl. The should-be-a-hit here is The World Should Revolve Around Me, bright soul-pop garnished with violins, horns and piano and with a chorus that beams like a smile. Elsewhere, Liked You Better� is a sweetly melodic, craftily barbed break up song (''I liked you better before you knew me/Didn't heater cigarettes, you didn't drink coffee'') spell Cryin' For The Queen appears to take draw a bead on at Amy Winehouse - or some other tottering, car-crash starlet - Coppola singing, ''Sick of your behaviour and your junky routine/It's time for you to get clean and stop creating a scene' atop an irresistible 60s girl mathematical group swing.
Mixing sweetness with sass, The Stoop mightiness just be Coppola's topper album to date, and if there's any justice, it'll see her render from the margins to pop's nitty-gritty stage.
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