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; tori kelly "unbreakable smile" album review

         Okay, so I've been big into Tori Kelly for a while. I was a fan of "Nobody Love", but what hooked me was (her hair) her live performance of it at the 2015 Billboard Music Awards. It was actually insane. Her vocal abilities are astounding and unbelievably impressive, and I can't believe she hasn't gotten the amount of attention and praise she deserves yet. Hopefully with Unbreakable Smile, that's exactly what she'll finally get.

         When I bought the album, I was essentially risking hating every track on it but the two singles currently getting radio play, "Nobody Love" and "Should've Been Us". Honestly, how was I to know that I'd enjoy the rest of it? But I do this a lot with music, and I generally have a pretty accurate hunch. Thankfully, that accurate hunch led me to another successful purchase.

         Here is what I thought of each track:

01: WHERE I BELONG - 9/10

         Obviously an album opener, "Where I Belong" comes off as super personal, in my opinion. The music/tune is bittersweet, abandoning some of the sweeter sounds typically associated with songs like this and adopting a rougher, edgier feel. I think it serves the album well once you hear the entire thing, because Tori does this often with several tracks that could have gone one way but ended up going the other. It's kind of hard to explain, but you'll understand once you give the album a listen. Very heartfelt, very deep. Favorite lyrics: "You know I forget to breathe sometimes / and I'm so afraid to fall behind"

02: UNBREAKABLE SMILE - 9.5/10

         The title track. This song made me realize that Tori Kelly is, in a way, the female Ed Sheeran with maybe a bit more production behind her. Where Ed relies mostly on the raw acoustic guitars and pianos, Tori seems much more comfortable with a band backing her up. But both artists are fantastic lyricists and are great with playing around with rapping. "Unbreakable Smile" puts Tori in a place where she appears to be very confident in herself and comfortable, which is pretty inspiring for her career just beginning to kick off. It makes me curious to know how that'll end up serving her in the future. Either way, I love this song. I don't know if you could call any of these tracks "bangers", because it's really not that type of music, but I can't think of any better word right now so I'm going to go ahead and call this one a banger. Favorite lyrics: "And baby who knows maybe I can sell out shows without taking off my clothes / God made me sexy I don't care if only I know it"

03: NOBODY LOVE - 10/10

         To be honest, I have this weird thing where I feel like any album's leading single is hardly ever one of its better tracks, but that doesn't seem to be the case with this album. I am all for this song. The bridge is my everything, the verses are my everything, and the chorus is dramatic and quiets the hype, and I'm just still so here for this song. But even better than "Nobody Love" is "Nobody Love" sung live. Jesus save me, Tori Kelly has a voice that I could only dream of having. When she hits that high note I honestly want to just start crying. Yeah. Fun story with this song: back at school, me and my roommate (Maria) were sitting in the basement of our dorm hall with a guy named Moe and it was after midnight, and we were pretty much just talking about nothing when these two guys came in and were like "Okay we have this song stuck in our heads but we can't think of what it's called or who sings it, and we don't know any of the words but it sounds like this." They proceeded to attempt to hum the bridge, and honestly I'd never heard the song before at this point, so I had zero clue, but we were all on our phones on, like, Billboard Top 40 charts and stuff listing songs off, and finally Moe looked this one up and it was it. So yeah, that's how I got into it. Favorite lyrics: "I should be more cynical and tell myself it's not okay / to feel this good when I'm with you"