There are so many pop artists that come and go, barely making a blip on the music radar. Today we are going to discuss the one-album wonder that was Willa Ford. Ricky and Shan are going to break down her album “Willa Was Here (2001),” track by track. We’ve also included ratings next to each title – 1 being our favorite track and 11 being our least favorite. The album only produced two singles “I Wanna Be Bad” and “Did Ya Understand That?” After this album, Willa went on to record a second, which has yet to see the light of day. We continue to wait…

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Ricky’s Breakdown

“I Wanna Be Bad” 1/11
Willa most likely won’t ever top this classic pop gem. My favorite lyric is “You make bad feel so good.” It’s so dirty, and so Willa, how could anyone not fall in love (or skanky lust) with her immediately?

“Did Ya Understand That” 2/11
This song has pretty cheesy lyrics, but the video more than makes up for it; in fact, you need to watch it online, if you can, and then worship this site for hooking you up with the audio from it. The hard rock breakdown with Willa screaming, “This is Willa’s world, bitch, in case you didn’t know!” is just about too much to handle! Definitely a Willa-must!

“Ooh Ooh” 10/11
The intro is kind of boring, as is most of this song. Willa, I think, should stay away from ballads. Although she is a trained opera singer, I don’t think her voice is strong enough to carry a slow track. There’s really not much more to say about it. While not terrible, it really doesn’t go anywhere. The first album-filler.

“Tired” 3/11
This song is brilliant, definitely one of the best tracks Willa has ever put out. She calls out Britney, and claims that all the pop stars of that era are ripping her off (as opposed to Britney and/or Christina Aguilera). It takes big lady balls to go THERE, so props to Willa for that one! This funky little pop number excels above a good number of the others, so I definitely recommend checking it out!

“Jokes On You” 5/11
This could be described as Willa Ford’s “Creep.” Not musically, but lyrically it’s the same theme. Her man is cheating on her, but haha! She’s cheating on him, as well! Of course Willa is cheating, she’s a straight up hoe and doesn’t give a damn! The chorus is beyond catchy, Willa admitting that she knows her man’s cheating, adding “every time you played around, I did too/Baby, now I guess the joke’s on you.” Indeed!

“Tender” 11/11
Spoken word intros can often times be sexy and/or pleasing to the listener. Not so much in this case. Again, Willa should definitely stay away from the ballads. Sure, sure, you’re a hoe on eight of the eleven album tracks, but here we’re told that your heart is actually ‘tender.’ I don’t buy it.

“Don’t You Wish” 8/11
I really enjoy the psycho-sounding “Da-da-da-da”’s at the beginning of this song, Willa sounds twisted and obsessive (sexy-sex-obsessive?). Also pleasing to my ears is the “I Wanna Be Bad” reference. This is a quality-pop song, in my opinion, not as much as that song, but definitely a must-listen.

“Prince Charming” 4/11
One of the cheesiest, most awesome pop songs evar! Willa’s basically wondering where the hell this Prince Charming she grew up hearing about is at, because she’s lookin’! The best part comes about three-fourths of the way through, when Willa gangsta-like name checks several male celebrities: “Prince William, where you at?! Where you at?! Matt Damon, where you at?! Where you at?! Kobe Bryant where you at?! Where you at?! … Leo DiCaprio, where you at?! Where you at?! Sisqo, where you at?! Where you at?!” SISQO?! Willa! Oh man! How can you not love the sheer cheesiness of it all?

“Somebody Take The Pain Away” 7/11
I love this song – it’s kind of a morose, midtempo ditty. The chorus borrows heavily from Eurythmics “Here Comes The Rain Again”; so heavily that Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart are credited as writers in the album booklet. “Here comes the pain again/Rakin’ up my heart it’s a tragedy.” I love the last note of the song when she sings, “Traj-a-day!” It’s so very Willa, and if you’re a fan, you know what I mean!

“Haunted Heart” 9/11
This song doesn’t stick out in my mind at all, but upon taking another listen, I do remember it, and it’s actually pretty decent. Not one of the better songs on the album, but it’s passable on an ‘enjoyable pop song’ level. The guitars sound manufactured, and probably are. Overall, a mediocre track on an otherwise fantastic album.

“Dare” 6/11
I’m listening to these songs as I type these blurbs, and so far, I haven’t been able to make out half of what she’s singing about. The chorus, however, reminds me that I do absolutely love this song. “Say it back to me: Nasty-nasty-nasty-nasty!” Yeah, that’s what I’m talkin’ about! Willa really works that “nasty bitch” pop star persona to a tee, and for me, that’s fantastic.

And three other tracks of Willa’s that aren’t on the album but we love equally.

“Santa Baby (Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!)”
“Dear Santa, this year for Christmas, I have a small list..” The opening of a Christmas song has never been quite as awesome. On the surface, It may seem very generic, but look deeper and you’ll find a classic for all generations. Greed and bad translations of the French and Spanish languages have never come across so well! Definitely one for the books!

“A Toast To Men (Fuck The Men)”
This song definitely rivals “I Wanna Be Bad” as Willa Ford’s greatest addition to the pop music lexicon. The only part I dislike is the spoken-intro (which she’s only been able to pull off on “Santa Baby”), but it’s over in eleven-seconds, so no worries from this end! The beat is heavy and non-stop. It just makes you want to grind! The odd thing is, the track is labeled as “Willa Ford feat. May” – but May raps the first two verses, while Willa sings the incredibly catchy chorus and the breakdown. Not that this is a terrible thing, May’s raps are catchy and sing-along worthy. I also get incredibly creamy when I hear Willa singing her opera-stylings at the end, in the background. She works it non-stop! Willa would get an A+ from me on this one, she is one talented lady, and this song helps prove that point.

“SexySexObsessive”
The title-track from Willa’s never-released second album, which she described as “a mix of Depeche Mode and Madonna.” This song does not disappoint, and after “A Toast To Men,” the entire project seemed very promising, leaving this Willa fan salivating for more. Sadly, this raunchy track is all we’ve gotten so far, but it more than satisfies. “I am crawling on inside your head,” she sings. Slinky, sexy and electro to the max, this song is unlike anything Willa has put out. It’s a shame the album never saw the light of day (or even leaked online! Hello!), because if this and “A Toast To Men” are anything to go by, it surely would have been a pop classic we would all still be raving about to this day. Willa, come back to the pop masses, we need you!

Shan’s Breakdown

“I Wanna Be Bad” 6/11
This was the first single from the album. Ricky got me hooked on this song, actually. I remember going to the store with him and he picked it up and I was like “Who is this?” I didn’t want to like it, but it was just too hard not to. The remixes for this song were however lacking.

“Did Ya Understand That?” That 5/11
Second and last single from this album. Wasn’t an instant love affair for me but after the super trashy video (YouTube this!) I had to love it. The video version (listen above) has an extra little breakdown that just takes it to a whole new level for any pop lover.

“Ooh Ooh” 4/11
The tempo really sucks you in on this, you almost want to dance to it, yet at the same time you could totally get your groove on to this. I see that Ricky doesn’t care as much for this, but I promise that it does not disappoint.

“Tired” 3/11
I’m not a fan of pop artists writing songs about being overexposed (ex. Lohan – Rumors) but I’ll make an exception in this case, cause this shit is just catchy. This song was ultimately Willa’s downfall because she was just asking for it by writing a song about being famous before she even was. It was like when Amy Winehouse wrote that song about going to rehab, she was just asking for it.

“Joke’s on You” 7/11
Honestly don’t have much to say about this song, it was one of the more forgettable ones for me. I always sort of compared it to “Ooh Ooh” and it was my lesser favorite of the two.

“Tender” 11/11
This is really where the album hits a speed bump. The typical ballad, and as Ricky will most likley point out – she tries to do the talking thing at the beginning and it’s just not one of her strong points. We prefer that she sticks to the upbeat stuff.

“Don’t You Wish” 1/11
Things pick right back up after that trainwreck with this hot track. She goes from the talky singing right into a, what I would classify as ‘light pop rap.’ This is where she hits the sweet spot. She also does a little throwback to her debut single by singing “I-I-I Wanna be bad with you”. I don’t know if this was intentional but I feel that it ties the whole thing together.

“Prince Charming” 2/11
She rolls right into my second favorite track with Prince Charming. There are so many good things about this song but if I feel I would be doing you a disservice by not talking about her name checking in this song. Although it does date the song, we love hearing Willa sing about Sisqo and Leo DiCaprio.

“Somebody Take the Pain Away” 8/11
This is also one of those tracks that sort of had to grow on me. I think what really got me into it is the piano, it has sort of an 18th century feel to it mixed with an upbeat tempo. I can always appreciate a song that mixes sounds together that you don’t expect.

“Haunted Heart” 9/11
If you like sexy baby talk you’ll like this song. Between that and her talking about coming to you in a mist it kinda just creeps you the fuck out. It’s not a bad track though; no really.

“Dare” 10/11
This is really the most forgettable track from the album. Until I sat down to write this review I had forgotten it was on here, she could have left this off and replaced it with something else. I like for an album to go out on a high note and this sadly is not one of those songs. On top of it all she talks about being nasty through the whole song, so I’m confused about why she didn’t just call the damn song “Nasty”.

Tags: Willa Ford

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