"Carve your name on hearts, not tombstones. A legacy is etched into the minds of others and the stories they share about you"
No intro, no fluff, this is a serious topic that needs to get straight to the point. This might seem like a joke of a title. You may think I’m intentionally, comically, hyperbolically making a bigger deal out of Leona Lewis than I really believe she deserves. That assumption would be incorrect. She is a mystery to me. I said the first time I heard “Bleeding Love”, “She is going to be the next big star.” I believed that deep in my mind and I know, in my heart, she should have been.
Honestly, it’s a crime that most of you only think about “Bleeding Love” when I mention Leona Lewis. Stop reading this right now and listen to “Better In Time”. I recommend the 2008 single version (linked here: https://open.spotify.com/track/6SiNUkoEBM3FE0QLEidrnS?si=8bf3af1b88e04245) over the version that is on the “Spirit” album. Drink it in. It’s a timeless, beautiful 2000’s ballad. It has all the parts. Right from the beginning, there is a super simple yet super effective piano part that really is nice. If you are someone like me who doesn’t have a musical bone in their body, you can play this piano part and still make it sound great. I can barely play the radio and I learned this part at one point in my life. And then… and then she opens up with, not just an immaculate vocal, but such a heartbreaking introduction. I LOVE how unapologetic the background vocals are here. They just kind of interject. You can tell they are trying to emote in this song an inner turmoil of someone who’s getting over heartbreak. There are these little musical things like the tinkling of the high notes on the piano early on in the song (around 39 seconds in). Or in the second verse “without something there to remind me” the hi hats get louder for a section. But, ultimately, when that beat drops, it just feels so daggum satisfying. Which, by the way, happens before the chorus. When the first line of the chorus comes in, “thought I couldn’t live without you, It’s gonna hurt when it heals too,” it just felt good from the first time I heard it and was a perfect setup. It honestly could have been a good chorus to begin with, but I love how it’s only kind of like the call and then the response is the titular line, ‘It’ll all get better in time”. It ramps up and ends with this incredible harmony on the words “in time”.
Leona doesn’t sing like Mariah Carey. This song doesn’t sound like a Mariah Carey song. She’s singing it like a Mariah at her peak level though. I love how, even though she can belt out so much of this song as we learned from “Bleeding Love”, she still shows some restraint and soft vulnerability in parts like the bridge which is stripped down, “since there’s no more you and me…” I honestly feel like this song could have been released today because the songwriting is so timeless. That said, I am not a music critic. I don’t know what I’m talking about (which has never stopped me from talking about something before and won’t stop me now). I have a friend who is a singer, songwriter, and producer. He has some self written, self produced, and self sung music on Spotify as well as has produced some songs for multiple other artists on Spotify. I reached out to his assistant to request a comment on Leona Lewis’ song “Better In Time.” This is what musical mastermind Brenden David had to say:
“I’ll start with my conclusion: I love it. I feel like I’m in class sneaking an earbud through my sweater sleeve because 6th graders are NOT allowed to have iPods at school. I will forever feel nostalgic when I hear this kind of music. I am too young to see this firsthand, but the way I understand it, hip hop and R&B started to become mainstream in the late 90s and then were fully embraced in the pop world in the 2000s. What this created was a weird blend of pop/hip hop/R&B that sounds extremely distinct and changed the course of pop music. If you’re my age, you heard this distinct sound all throughout elementary and middle school – Alicia Keys, Chris Brown, T Payne, Black Eyed Peas, and of course, Leona Lewis.
As a thought experiment, I like to listen to old songs and ask myself “would this song be successful if it were released today?” I think from a production perspective, it doesn’t stand a chance. Production just progresses too quickly. In the 2000s, the term producer mostly meant “beat maker” – at least in certain genres like R&B and rap. They essentially created a catchy loop and then the artist wrote a “top line” (i.e. the lyrics and melody) on top of the finished beat. Nowadays, a producer is considered one of the “songwriters” and tend to play a more wholistic role in the creation of a song. I think a lot of this change is simply the result of technology improvements. If the structure of the lyrics changes during the songwriting process, it is much easier these days to go into your music production software and change the instrumentation accordingly. This allows for an iterative back-and-forth process between the music and lyrics. Not to criticize the great J.R. Rotem who produced this, but these sounds could all easily be presets from a $100 Casio keyboard. The drums are a dead giveaway – a consistent loop with no variation throughout the song. They are just “in” or “out” at any given point. Listen to some of J.R.’s other hits like Beautiful Girls by Sean Kingston or Replay by Iyaz, then compare it to new R&B like H.E.R., SZA, or Bryson Tiller. Or for another example, check out the synth sound in the intro of Forever by Chris Brown. That sound was forever locked into 2008; afterward it was promptly deleted off the hard drives and keyboards of producers everywhere.
From a songwriting perspective, I think this could absolutely be released today. The TikTok era loves some good R&B right now, especially with a soulful, believable vocal delivery like Leona Lewis gives here. From the first line, you are immediately drawn into the story with a level of emotion that practically begs you to add this to your list of karaoke go-to’s. The prechorus is the shining moment of the song to me. It’s catchy in a classic way, reminiscent of TLC or Destiny’s Child. The chorus manages to have fun, fast, rhythmic phrases (“even though I really love you”) while consistently returning to a nice home base for those of us that don’t really know the words (“It’ll all get better in time”). Thematically, the self-love-despite-heartbreak is just as popular a message in 2024 as it was in 2006. Maybe more.
All in all, a timeless song forever preserved for us in the time capsule that is 2000s production.”
Very well said Brenden. Your reference to “Beautiful Girls” by Sean Kingston unlocked a memory for me. I used to have an mp3 player. Not to brag. It broke at one point and would only play one song. The song it got stuck on was “Beautiful Girls” by Sean Kingston. I listened to it while mowing the yard until I got a new mp3 player. People have since reminded me I could have just not listened to music. That option did not occur to me at the time.
As a journalist, it is part of my job to do some digging and information gathering. I couldn’t base this whole article on my opinion alone with support from a friend who I clearly could have influenced with my questioning. I reached out to another journalist. Cole Winton of Information Inquiry – Your News Today! had this to say:
He also said, “I also asked my buddy Andrew if he knew who sang Bleeding Love and he said Christina Aguilera. Sad that she is not known even for her hits. Really great voice and compelling lyrics. Absolutely knew how to make a radio hit for the time. Curious about how she sounds live especially with the high note runs. EX: Mariah Carey as of recent.”
My two sources so far, though having natural music talent of their own, were neither one classically trained. I reached out to Rusty Jernigan. After getting a degree in music composition from Belmont University, Rusty has gone on to compose and produce many great songs including a personal favorite of mine “Ants Be Creepin’”. I reached out to him for a note on “Better In Time”. He had this to say:
“You get to hear Leona and a sense of the journey she had been on that is comforting and human. Because of the in-your-face vulnerability on the track, most likely you get to experience your own reverie that connects you back to a time in life when this message hits the hardest. Even if your life is in a great place now, perhaps a survey of all the moments between a time when everything gets better shows you how far you’ve really come.”
And that’s the Leona Lewis effect.
You can’t help but feel it. You are brought into the experience she is singing about at her best. So, now that we all agree she is an underrated and moving artist, what happened? First of all, I need to confess something to you all. I am burying it here over 1500 words in because I am not proud of it: I thought Leona Lewis’ name was pronounced Lee-Aw-Nuh but was corrected in conversation yesterday and told it is Lee-Oh-Nuh. I was speaking passionately about her talent and how disrespected she is all while disrespecting her accidentally.
Many of you might not know, but Leona got her start on Simon Cowell’s singing competition The X Factor (UK). She absolutely DOMINATED her season. She was signed to Simon Cowell’s record label on a five year deal and immediately released a cover of Kelly Clarkson’s “A Moment Like This” which was downloaded over 50,000 times in the first 30 minutes after its release. Her first album included the hit you all (except for Cole’s friend Andrew) know her for, “Bleeding Love”. Again, she was moving in the right direction. However, I personally believe the thing that gives her such high highs was what ultimately brought her demise. She sings with such an honesty, soulfulness, and vocal convenience of emotion that when honest you connect with her words even if you aren’t going through the same emotion at the time as Rusty noted. During her rise, Leona was happy and in love. She was still with her childhood sweetheart. While I support love and want people to be happy, it might have hindered her career as she continued to try to lean into the emotional heartbreak anthems that weren’t really true to who she was.
Unfortunately, she kept trying to capture the early success of “Bleeding Love” and “Better In Time” but just couldn’t seem to. In interviews, she has said that after her early success, Simon Cowell and his record label began bringing on many new artists and she felt as if she wasn’t getting the guidance and attention she needed. The final straw, it seemed, was when she was told she should release a cover song album. At that point she split from Simon’s label and tried venturing out on her own. We all know, based on the fact I’m writing this, that this was not successful. Ultimately, despite the talent, the look, and the momentum, the music industry is difficult.
Do me, and yourself, a favor and dig into some Leona Lewis songs today.
