Soul survivor Jessie J's first album in 7 years shows her softer side

JESSIE J: Don’t Tease Me With A Good Time (Darco)

Verdict: Confessional comeback

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Blessed with a big voice and bags of attitude, Jessie J has never been one of pop’s shrinking violets. ‘Stomp, stomp, I’ve arrived,’ she declared on her 2010 debut single Do It Like A Dude, before winning the following year’s Critics’ Choice Award at the BRITs and securing chart-topping hits with Price Tag, Domino and Bang Bang. British music, it seemed, finally had its swaggering response to Pink and Lady Gaga.

But despite singing at the London Olympics, completing a stint on The Voice UK and co-writing major singles for other artists — including Party In The USA for Miley Cyrus — the artist born Jessica Cornish never quite fulfilled that early potential.

Critics derided her lack of sophistication, and her 2018 album, R.O.S.E., was bafflingly released in four instalments, making little impact.

The East Londoner, 37, has since been through the mill offstage. In 2020, she was diagnosed with the inner-ear disorder Ménière’s disease before suffering a miscarriage in 2021.

This summer, she underwent a mastectomy, after being diagnosed with early stage breast cancer. The procedure led to the postponement of an autumn tour, and she is still waiting for a second round of surgery, but the upheavals (she also became a first-time mum in 2023) have undoubtedly fed into her songwriting.

So, as she releases her first album in seven years (her sixth overall), is Jessie back with a banger? Not quite... at least not at first.

Don’t Tease Me With A Good Time, with OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder among its producers, showcases a softer, more thoughtful side to her character. At 17 tracks and 50 minutes, it’s a little too long, but a shift from brash pop and R&B to something more mature and soulful suits her well.

The first part of the album is dominated by mellifluous, confessional ballads. ‘I can no longer disguise all the pain that comes with growing,’ she tells us on Feel It On Me, while I Don’t Care finds her walking away from ‘the gaslighters, the abusers, the narcissists’.

On No Secrets, she sings tenderly of the impact of her miscarriage: ‘I lost my baby, but the show must go on, right?’ The song proceeds to question the modern habit of sharing our entire lives online.

She addresses her grief again on Comes In Waves and I’ll Never Know Why, the latter about a close friend who died by suicide. But her ballads also search for light in the darkness, notably on Believe In Magic, on which she suggests a novel remedy for her sorrows: ‘Let’s make love and listen to Sade.’

Her resolve to bounce back continues on Sonflower, a ballad about her two-year-old son, Sky, while the occasionally brutal Complicated is an honest year-by-year assessment of her roller-coaster career. ‘2010 was the year I didn’t know what I was doing,’ she admits. ‘I sang so loud, insecure, but nobody knew it.’

Bringing welcome variety, there’s also a shift towards more uptempo material as the album progresses, with California a jazzy anthem that shows she can still belt out a big song when the fancy takes her, an impression she reiterates on Living My Best Life. ‘No more tears, I’m not wasting time being sad tonight,’ she sings, adding an optimistic flourish to a heartfelt return.

Out today. Jessie J starts a UK tour on April 7, 2026, at Symphony Hall, Birmingham (ticketmaster.co.uk).

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