CREDIT: HOLLYWOOD RECORDS
Confident is an earnest album with a handful of unfortunate mistakes; if you like teenage girls yelling in your ear for half an hour, pick up a copy.

Demi Lovato’s Confident is the latest album in a long-winded list of records by ex-Disney pop stars. Released on Oct. 16, the album unfolds over a moderate 11 songs, which follow the typical formula of self-empowerment and irreverence. I guess you can’t blame her for following recipes that work.

The album opens in a bold manner with her first two singles, “Confident”, and “Cool for the Summer” playing back to back.

Both of these heavy hitters are aided by huge drums, which rival a strong vocal delivery from Lovato. She seems to dance around each syllable with evocative wordplay that creates plenty of memorable lines. The powerful brass section in “Confident” gives way to thunderous synthesizers in “Cool for the Summer”, maintaining a strong sense of originality.

As catchy as these two songs are, nothing else on Confident comes even close. It begs the question, why would you play all your aces in the first 10 minutes of an album? Perhaps Demi only expected her audience to have a 10-minute attention span. Whatever the reason, this oversight creates an unfortunate downhill experience as the album progresses.

This downward turn isn’t restrained to interest alone, it also reflects the album’s excitement. Confident drops quickly from powerful up-tempo anthems like “Old Ways” to somber ballads like “Stone Cold” and “Father”.

It all seems a little directionless, flitting between the attitudes of “I do what I want” and “Baby I need you so bad”. Clearly she doesn’t want anything to do with her old self, but I’m not entirely convinced that she knows who the new Demi is either.

Amidst the relentless ballads and glass-shattering vocal trills in the second half of Confident, lays “Kingdom Come”. This track aims to reach that same sort of excitement that opened the album, but comes up short. Most of this can be traced to a grievous appearance by the Australian rapper, Iggy Azalea.

The verse that Azalea delivers is downright the worst part of Confident, and possibly the weakest rap of 2015. Her ill-fated performance kills all momentum in the song, and proves once again that Azalea is just a one trick pony. She calls herself the queen, but can’t spit out a single verse without stumbling over weak rhymes.

After the disappointment of “Kingdom Come”, the remainder of Confident dances around generic mid-tempo power ballads. It’s easy to see the influences of Kelly Clarkson and Christina Aguilera here, ending with a gut-wrenching tribute to her late Dad, entitled “Father”.

This final track is perhaps the most chilling and genuine tune on the album, living in sober contrast to the opening singles. It’s easy to see why Demi would finish the album with such an emotive song, but it’s just a shame there are so many similar tunes preceding it. If it were to come after a more upbeat song like “Old Ways”, the juxtaposition here may have created a stronger emotion that lingered onwards with listeners.

At the end of the day, Lovato has put out a decent record, with a few honest mistakes. It won’t rival anything like Rumors or Pet Sounds, but it doesn’t deserve to collect dust on the top shelf either. If Lovato keeps on this journey of self-discovery and suave lyricism I’m sure her next album will put Confident to shame.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5