Critical reception
Shine was met with generally positive reviews. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an average score of 73, based on 18 reviews. [1] Caroline Sullivan from The Guardian found that the "Londoner has constructed something lovable in Shine. Equal parts reggae, pop and hip-hop, it's stuffed with potential singles. It's fairly lightweight and, thanks to its phalanx of American producers, incredibly glossy. [3] AllMusic editor Andy Kellman noted that Estelle could "be proud of having made a second full-length that builds upon and far outstrips her first [...] Through it all, Estelle is the main attraction and is never upstaged or out of her depth." He concluded that "not many vocalists could possibly navigate all this terrain without losing a beat, but Estelle has no trouble pulling it off with her versatility and easy-to-like personality. Her second act is ceaselessly enjoyable, one of the finer R&B albums to be released in 2008." [2]
Ben Hogwood from musicOMH felt that Shine was "the winning end product of her musical dalliances with John Legend and Kanye West, who head an illustrious guest list [...] Compared to the admittedly prodigious vocals of Duffy and Adele, this feels like the real deal." [11] Jon Caramanica from The New York Times called Shine a "charming if sometimes blithe second album [with] a more modern antecedent: the decade-old Miseducation of Lauryn Hill . [12] Rolling Stone 's Jody Rosen fund that with Shine "Estelle offers a gritty alternative to R&B; divadom's strutting fembots." But [the] Yanks don't dilute Shine's regional feel — this West London homegirl's perspective is etched in her husky singing, fleet—tongued rapping and wised—up lyrics. The music encompasses rugged modern R&B, dancehall, Sarah Vaughan-style jazz vocalese and, on "No Substitute Love," a reggae-soul-hip—hop torch song." [6] Billboard 's Mariel Concepcion found that Shine was "heaving with catchy, instantly likable hip-hop/R&B/pop songs," [13] Rodney Dugue, writing for The Village Voice felt that "Estelle turns Shine into a durable debut, pleasant and shrewd." [14]
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