Selena Gomez & The Scene is a money making machine and can probably sell any album, regardless of quality. Despite this, their second album, A Year Without Rain, is surprisingly quite good. Whilst it’s not as good as sales would suggest and she is by no means the second coming it’s still a good listen.

 

People will always listen to songs made by Selena. Fans of the whole ‘Disney industry’ want any piece of their favourite star they can get. Whether it be in a movie, biography or in this case an album. This blind recklessness is worrying, not so much to the music industry, but rather the quality of the music itself. Many celebrities are weaving their way into the music scene a la Paris Hilton. While others must work hard to get any sort of airtime, the Selena Gomez name automatically buys her space despite quality of music, this I find both interesting and slightly unjust .That being said, this is a music review and the music is all important so I will give them a fair shake.

 

A Year Without rain debuted at 4th on our charts and surpassing her previous album, Kiss and Tell, by a distance. The songs on this album have a fun style in that they are very is easy to listen to. Just put on the first track and you will rarely feel the need to skip tracks. The style of most songs leans heavily into the pop genre and if you are not a fan of said pop, I implore you to stay away. Songs like ‘Spotlight’ and especially ‘Summers Not Hot’ is pop at its most extreme. If that’s your type of thing, the bubbly vibe of ‘Summers Not Hot’ will surely make you want to go straight to the beach. This easy listening is also a pitfall though, as whilst there are good songs, there are no great ones. No song will tug at your heart strings or astounding you with its ingenious lyrics. There are no masterpieces on this album.

 

The best quality of the album though, is definitely the amount of good songs on it. Most albums have a few greats with the rest not being worth of a second listen. In this album however, about 70% of the songs you will find yourself listening over and over again.  While most songs are the usual ‘girl likes boy, boy doesn’t notice girl’ affair and are also very identical in style, it’s exactly that style which makes this album this so catchy. It contains songs which just love to get stuck in your head and that you will find yourself softly singing all day, embarrassing as it may be.

 

So if you hate pop, this is definitely not for you. If you want the next best album of all time, again, not for you. If you prefer quantity over quality and don’t mind singing along to catchy tunes I can definitely recommend this album to you.