★★★★★
After the slick production of his first two albums shoehorned him into an ill-fitting contemporary R&B; mold, American Idol vet Elliott Yamin moves in a much more natural sounding, vintage soul-inspired direction on Let's Get to What's Real. From an aesthetic standpoint, the album looks to position Yamin comfortably alongside acts like Nikka Costa, Mayer Hawthorne, and Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, which isn't such bad company for an artist with a purist's approach to classic R&B...
- www.slantmagazine.com
2012-04-19
★★★★★
There is a price to pay for achieving your initial fame on American Idol: for a period of time, your career is not your own. Becoming a finalist on that show typically comes with strings that include both some Idol control over your initial post-show recordings as well as an inherited audience that also directs a young artist in a certain direction...
- www.soultracks.com
2012-04-11
★★★★★
Certainly one of the most likable American Idol alums, Elliott Yamin was quietly also one of the most talented. He literally appeared to grow from a boy to a man in the 4 months on the show, and by the end of Season 5 was clearly the best pure singer of the bunch. However, his understated nature made a career beyond Idol no sure thing, and his self-titled debut bowed in the top 5 (no doubt due to his mostly pre-teen Idol fans) only to almost immediately drop out of sight...
- www.soultracks.com
2010-12-07
★★★★★
It's funny. I wanted Yamin to become more his own singer than he was on a debut that overly relied on his vocal influences from the 70s soul legends of yore. Now I have a sophomore disc that vocally is uniquely his own, only it's not on a particularly unique project. Yamin delivers polished pop with solid, if nondescript vocals on predictable songs that fail to move me a single inch...
- www.soultracks.com
2010-12-07
★★★★★
To get the most out of Elliott Yamin, the debut CD from last season's scruffily soulful third-place finisher on American Idol, treat each track like a different episode of the show. "Wait for You" is ballad week: "You did your thing, dawg," Randy might say. "Alright" is hip-hop week: "It sounded like last call at some ghastly karaoke bar" would be Simon's reply...
- ew.com
2010-08-27
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