Sparks ready for Battlefield

“I never want to assume that people are going to like what I come out with or are going to like my music or like my single,” she says. “With my first album…I wasn’t going to assume just because I won Idol that people are going to like me.

“So this time around,I kind of had the same mind set,like,‘Just because I have those singles that did really well,doesn’t mean people are still going to like my music.’” True enough,though her collaborators on Battlefield surely improve her odds: Sparks worked with such big-name songwriters and producers as Dr. Luke (Britney Spears,Clarkson),Ryan Tedder (Beyonce,Leona Lewis) and T-Pain. She also co-wrote four songs on the record,which she loved doing.

It has been about two years since her self-titled 2007 debut. “So I’ve grown up a little bit and gone through a couple of things. I’m excited to hear what people think,” she says.

One of the songs she co-wrote is Faith,a gauzy piano ballad with an optimistic heart. Written four days before Barack Obama took the oath of office as president,she and co-writers Lindy Robbins and Toby Gad wanted a counterpoint to the political and financial turbulence upending lives across the globe.

“We were thinking of all of that and the song kind of just poured out of me and poured out of us,” Sparks says. ‘And it just says,‘Come on,baby,baby. Have a little faith.’ And I just felt that it was so important. I think a lot of people kind of need to hear that message.”

Not every song on the album has an underlying message of hope,however. Emergency 911 is about romantic irritation.

“It was kind of one of those things where I was thinking about boys and I was thinking about my friends,” Sparks says. “And even with some of my own experience,how sometimes guys are late for a lot of things or they tell you that they’re going to come and then they’re two hours late and it’s really annoying.” Although the song comes from a youthful perspective on the travails of love,Sparks mentions more than once that she views Battlefield as a reflection of her growing maturity.

“I think the biggest thing with this album is just growth in my voice and maturity in my voice,and growth and maturity in me as a person,” Sparks says. “I’ve grown up a little bit,but I haven’t gotten too old. I’m only 19 years old. So I’ve got a lot of growing to do,and I’ve got a lot to learn still.”