BLOGTOBER 2009: Music Reviews (15 of 22) MoZella, Belle Isle

In today's edition of BLOGTOBER Music Reviews, I'm trying out MoZella's Belle Isle.

Above, the video for Magic (Oh Oh Oh), if you are wondering why it sounds familiar even though you've never heard of MoZella before, it's cause this song is on a Verizon commercial. Her big break a few years back was when Mercedes picked one of her songs for a big campaign, and her music has been used for Nivea commercial, too.

The whole album is background to a commercial or Teen Drama friendly, and that's not meant as an insult. Each song has a strong hook, well performed vocals, and an easy feel. Nothing wrong with an artist getting paid, and with the collapsing music industry, artists have to get their voices heard any way they can.

Can't imagine this being anyone's favorite album, but it's also not an album that you can find a lot of faults with. It's middle of the road in every way, but it's perfectly executed middle of the road music, and there's a place for that sort of thing (as a nice hook to hang an ad campaign on, apparently). This is a very solid album, polished in every aspect (maybe a touch too polished, for my tastes).

She has a series of "Under the Covers" videos posted on her YouTube account, and they're pretty interesting. She's got a nice vocal style, that holds together when stripped down to just her and a guitar. In some ways I like her in stripped down coffee house mode better than the studio stuff, her voice is compelling enough to not need everything else going on around it.