Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	(59/100)
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic
Billboard	(favorable)
The Boston Globe	(favorable)
Entertainment Weekly	C+
The Guardian
The Independent	(mixed)
MusicOMH
The New York Times	(favorable)
The Observer
Rolling Stone
Slant
The Times
Yahoo! Music UK

Echo is the second studio album by British singer and songwriter Leona Lewis. It was released on 9 November 2009 including 16 November in the United Kingdom, and 17 November 2009 in the United States. Its worldwide release was through Sony Music.

Lewis worked with Ryan Tedder, Justin Timberlake, Max Martin, John Shanks, and Harvey Mason, Jr. amongst others to produce the follow-up to her debut album Spirit. The album was preceded by the single "Happy", released on 15 September 2009. "I Got You" was released as the second single in February 2010. The song "My Hands" was used as the theme song for the video game Final Fantasy XIII. The album achieved commercial success, peaking within the top twenty in nine countries, including debuting at number one in the UK with 161,000 copies sold in its first week.

As with Lewis's debut album, Spirit, each of Echo's producers were enlisted by her mentors Simon Cowell and Clive Davis. Unlike her debut album where she travelled between cities, Lewis remained in Los Angeles for the recording of Echo, which took nine months to produce. It contains ballads, racier tracks and dancefloor anthems. Lewis titled the album Echo "since an echo describes a big, organic sound," and it appealed to her love of fantasy as Echo was a nymph who, in Greek mythology, "pined away till only her voice remained." In August 2009 Lewis told her official website: "I'm in the midst of the recording process, working with incredible songwriters and producers, and my music has really evolved. It's so exciting to create something new." She also said, "I'm actually more confident with this album than the last. I've taken more control this time and I feel more at ease with everything." She told Variety magazine that she "wanted the album to have a little bit more of a live feel to it, with a little more live instrumentation," and described Echo as "more guitar-driven" compared to Spirit, with a "harder edge" in an interview with Seventeen.

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