Jo De La Rosa – Unscripted
by Dan Fricker
Jo De La Rosa
Official Site: http://www.jodelarosamusic.com/
Official MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/jodelarosa
Reality television has spawned some pretty outrageous fame-seeking offspring, but no one can challenge the ambitious attempts of pop star-wannabe Jo De La Rosa from Bravo’s The Real Housewives of Orange County. De La Rosa recently released (…get this) the solo music album Unscripted
The show, Housewives, was pitched as a real-life spin-off of The OC and Desperate Housewives combined, and followed the lavish lifestyles of five stay-at-home wives and their mansion-ridden families. The first season featured Jo De La Rosa, along with four other spoiled, narcissistic, and cartoonishly superficial ladies of the estate. This televisual debut began De La Rosa’s whirlwinding (and entirely ephemeral) fifteen minutes … start the countdown now.
De La Rosa is originally from Peru, but her family moved to California when she was very young. Her parents won the California lottery and Jo’s life of luxury began early on in life. After graduating University she started work in the insurance industry, where she met Slade Smiley. Cut to Jo, living with now-husband Slade, as his domesticated housewife in the Coto Estate on RHOC. Put a bunch of cameras around them and you’ve got yourself another reality show, that no one in their right mind will really ever watch. The first season chronicled Jo’s ‘trouble adjusting to the traditional housewife role’, despite her luxurious Mercedes sedan and expensive jewelry. From this writer’s perspective, the entire show was a mockery of people so rich and so far out of touch with reality that they wouldn’t know real problems if they were right in front of them swimming in their indoor heated pool.
After Season 1, Jo decided to take hold of her professional life and left her husband Slade to pursue a career (relatively respectable)… in, music (potentially laughable). Ultimately by Season 3 she was off the show and had signed a record deal with Immergent in Los Angeles (I’d like to know who’s running that operation). To keep the fifteen minutes from running entirely dry, De La Rosa somehow managed to land herself a spin-off with, yes… a dating show (this just keeps getting better). Bravo’s Date My Ex: Jo & Slade premiered in the summer of 2008, in which a group of bachelors competed to become Jo’s new love interest, with ex-husband Slade lurking over all of their shoulders along the way. Concept television: there’s really nothing like it. The whole thing was blatantly staged and intrusive and the definition of non-reality, but it was a moderate success for Bravo, and helped keep Jo’s fame clock ticking long enough to debut her CD.
Cut now to Unscripted, a 12-track album released just this last August. And all jokes about reality stars and their out of control hunger for celebrity status aside… it’s actually alright. The single “U Can’t Control Me” was the theme song for Date My Ex and speaks to the overarching theme of the album, about standing up for your dreams. As cheesy as that last statement sounds when read aloud, it’s true. The whole album is a semi-autobiographical story about Jo starting her life over. Jo is famous (to the select few who watch Bravo) for standing up to her patriarch of a husband, grabbing a hold of her professional life and going after what she wants. And she got it… Unscripted is it… so, good on her.
The rest of the tracks? Mostly poppish bubblegum dance tunes, with some elements of hip-hop and the occasional ballad. Good for background beats while you’re getting ready to go out for a night of dancing.
But the surprise hidden gem: “A Little Inspiration”, which is just De La Rosa singing on the piano. Despite being a little airy, the singer actually gets a chance to show off her voice… and lyrically the moral is a little inspirational indeed: “As I sit here writing a love song, so afraid you won’t understand, everything I know is fallen away so visions of dreams are fading so fast. All that I really need is a little inspiration from the pain”. Who knows if De La Rosa will keep inspiring long enough to keep her clock ticking away… I suggest she speak to Bravo about getting a celebrity cooking show.
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