Fame\u2019s fickle lottery has not been kind to Jessie J lately. After a run of huge international hits in the early 2010s, the 38-year-old pop diva \u2014 aka Jessica Ellen Cornish \u2014 has not scored a Top 10 single for over a decade. In 2025, shortly before releasing her first album in seven years, Don\u2019t Tease Me with a Good Time, she had surgery for breast cancer. Fortunately for Cornish, she has embraced fluctuating fortunes with stoic resilience and dry humour. \u201cI\u2019ve only got four hits,\u201d she quipped from the Liverpool Philharmonic stage. \u201cI\u2019m not very good at being famous\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
She may be a recovering pop star, but Cornish can still command a crowd. Backed by an acoustic trio for this stripped-down show, she love-bombed Liverpool with self-effacing jokes, inspirational self-help sermons and direct interactions with audience members. During her body-positive anthem Queen, when a woman celebrating her birthday sidled up to the stage, the singer shared a weepie hug and sang Happy Birthday to her. She later posed for selfies with young fans, and even summoned an 11-year-old girl on stage to duet with her on Living My Best Life. However cheesy these gestures may sound, the effect was very uplifting, moving many to tears. Even hardened, cynical music journalists. <\/p>\n
The most disappointing aspect of this show was the gulf between Cornish\u2019s big, brassy, funny personality and her often anodyne, conservative, charisma-free songs. Minor tracks such as No Secrets or If I Save You wafted through the Philharmonic like air freshener, fragrant but forgettable. Even more memorable hits, notably Do It Like a Dude, were slightly marred by the singer pushing her jazzy vocal technique to the limit with hiccupy, melismatic mannerisms that bordered on self-parody. Future pop historians will one day excoriate the lasting damage the Brit School did to music, churning out blandly professional cruise-ship singers, technically skilled but methodically drained of individuality.<\/p>\n
Happily, Cornish still had a few world-class bangers in her back pocket, sweeping the crowd to their feet with the sparkly romantic whoosh of Believe in Magic, the funky earworm Price Tag and the bouncy Domino, which her band lightly embroidered with winking homages to Prince\u2019s 1999. Clearly more than a four-hit wonder, Jessie J is still a natural on stage, even if her chatty charm is more engaging than her music. Jessie J Set list, Liverpool Philharmonic, Apr 10<\/p>\n Feel It On Me<\/p>\n Do It Like a Dude<\/p>\n No Secrets<\/p>\n If I Save You<\/p>\n Complicated<\/p>\n Queen<\/p>\n Who You Are<\/p>\n I\u2019ll Never Know Why<\/p>\n Domino<\/p>\n Believe in Magic<\/p>\n H.A.P.P.Y<\/p>\n Threw It Away<\/p>\n California<\/p>\n Price Tag<\/p>\n Living My Best Life<\/p>\n Flashlight<\/p>\n My Way<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fame\u2019s fickle lottery has not been kind to Jessie J lately. After a run of huge international hits…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[156,157,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-376498","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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Jessie J plays the Albert Hall, Manchester, Apr 13, SEC Armadillo, Glasgow, Apr 14,\u00a0jessiejofficial.com<\/a><\/p>\n