Jess Glynne: I Cry When I Laugh review – hit-and-miss debut from new pop talent

In the 21st century there is no better pop apprenticeship than the feature vocal. Following in the footsteps of Emeli Sandé, Jessie Ware and Sam Smith comes Jess Glynne. Already a No 1 star thanks to collaborations with Clean Bandit, Route 94 and Tinie Tempah, Glynne is now being launched in her own right, with this lengthy collection (featuring 20 tracks on the deluxe version) intended to showcase her talents. It’s unclear quite what those are, however – not so much because Glynne lacks a distinctive voice, but more because the variety of producers and arrangements here mean it’s difficult to tell quite what her thing is. There’s the Sandéesque Don’t Be So Hard On Yourself, a big piano pop song that invites the listener to push on through the dark days. Sandé herself appears on soppy ballad The Saddest Vanilla, which does what it suggests and casts the pair as miserable scoops of ice cream. The Clean Bandit collaborations here – Real Love, Right Here and also the deeper groove of Why Me – are built around fashionable house grooves that cast Glynne’s vocals in a more sultry light, but they probably won’t be the tracks that make her big.