“Safe Trip Home” by Dido
It’s amazing to hear the humble intentions behind Dido’s first album, “No Angel”. She says, “As far as I was concerned I was making this little underground record for me to listen to and then, suddenly, eight years later I was getting off this incredible speeding train.” Little did she know that it would become the planet’s biggest seller of 2001!
Her softly-expressed thoughts, parables, feelings, hopes and concerns flow unfettered from “Safe Trip Home”. It is a record of love and loss, strength and surrender, highs and lows. She continues to show an astonishing knack for extracting life’s universals from its little details. In a sea full of self-indulgent artists, by far Dido is one of the most sincere and earnest voices that you will hear.
My absolute favorite song was the quirky “Let’s Do the Things We Normally Do”, which weaves between eccentric wonderment, blissful happiness, and back again. Of course I also gravitated toward the tracks with a brisker pace, such as “Don’t Believe in Love”, “Never Want to Say It’s Love”, and “Us 2 Little Gods”.
A few of the slower tracks can get quite melancholy, however ones like “Quiet Times”, “Look No Further” and “Northern Skies” still had a certain appeal that captivated me.
If you are used to more lively music, it may take a few listens before you appreciate her calm, almost comatose energy. On my first listen, I wasn’t sure I would like any of the tracks, but now I can easily enjoy listening to the album start to finish. It feels like detox from all the loud voices, exaggerated emotions, and inflated egos of today’s music scene.
“Enrique Iglesias - Greatest Hits”
And now, for the man dripping with Latino swagger and machismo. With my heritage and upbringing, I still tend to crave the sound of a guitar, and he delivers that cultural flavour in a manner appealing to my generation. Enrique has mastered the fusion of pop, R&B, Latin and rock, and this album takes you through a long list (17 tracks) of the songs that made his career.
Enrique was born in Madrid, Spain and raised in Miami. He discovered his musical talent early, but he was determined not to coast on his father’s fame. A then teenaged Enrique shopped his first demo using the name Enrique Martinez: only reverting to his true surname after signing with a small Mexican label. Today he is one of the decades’ biggest stars with worldwide sales of over 40 million copies, 9 platinum or multi-platinum CDs, 19 #1 Billboard Latin hits (more than any other artist in the chart’s history) and over half a dozen top 10 singles on the Billboard Top 100.
One track that jumped out at me was “Takin’ Back My Love”. Not only was it an instant favorite, but it comes with some intrigue, bearing a striking resemblance to Lady Gaga’s “Just Dance”…there must have been some artistic cross-pollination because this is no coincidence. This song is one of two future hit singles that the album introduces. The other is a mid-tempo ballad entitled “Away” - not bad, but there were plenty of other tracks that I liked more.
“Do You Know?” makes interesting use of the sound of a ping pong ball being volleyed back and forth, perhaps symbolic as Enrique sings “Do you know what it feels like loving someone that’s in a rush to throw you away.” I recognized the well known “Bailamos”, “Rhythm Divine”, and “Hero”, and I finally got a proper introduction to the newer “Escape” and “Tired of Being Sorry”. There are so many good songs that there’s little point in naming them all!
“The Best of Hilary Duff”
To be 21 and have released a successful CD is impressive enough, but at 21 Hilary Duff already has a “Best Of” album! Says the down-to-earth Texas girl, “I feel really overwhelmingly grateful to my fans for supporting me in the first place and growing with me. It’s tough growing up anyway, so to have such a strong fan base supporting me means so much.”
A few years ago I sought out Hilary Duff’s song “Come Clean”, and once I found it, I pretty much listened it to death. That was my only real foray into this perky little pop star’s work – I didn’t look any further because frankly I didn’t think Duff, then only 16 or 17 years old, had much more to offer a person of my tastes. By this selection of songs, I guess I was wrong. “Come Clean” does appear on the album, but with a serious techno makeover.
This album brings a great deal of new material to the table. For one, it starts off with a glimpse into Duff’s bold new musical direction, and offers an ample helping of remixes from older work. The debut single “Reach Out” is a hip-hop/rock flavoured song that combines Hilary’s edgy vocals with guest rapper Prophet, and a sample from the 1989 Depeche Mode classic “Personal Jesus”. Another newly recorded track is “Holiday”, that Duff co-wrote with her sister Haylie. Both of these new songs are easy favorites.
“Stranger” has a serious and troubled air to it, and I especially like the chorus where she sings, “there’s no kindness in your eyes / the way you look at me is just not right.” Later on, “Play With Fire” is a sassy number where she sings about an ex that wants her back, and when you expect her to tell him to get lost, she instead taunts him with an invitation to try!
Surprisingly there were only a few songs from her overly sweet teenager phase: “Wake Up” annoyed me a bit, “So Yesterday” was actually quite catchy, and “Why Not” was so over-the-top cutesy that I had to swallow a mouthful of vomit. Thankfully the remixes of “Reach Out” and “Holiday” wiped that flavour clean.
Hilary Duff is not just for high school girls anymore; she is maturing, and it shows in her music. I expect we’ll be hearing more and more of her out on the dance floor.
“Hate Culture” by William Control
It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to piece the clues together – the title, the artist, and the cover. This a Goth album - run for your lives! Or stick around and enjoy the dark, hedonistic ride.
William’s prologue is entertaining, as he speaks with a deep, almost animalistic voice, and all the bold vampire bravado that he can muster. He makes it clear that he doesn’t want you to like him, which I guess means you can dislike, hate, or love him. He indiscriminately propositions the entire female population, with an assurance to the male population that they can enjoy the same sexual benefits. Well, now I know why GayCalgary came to mind when mailing out the promo discs!
As you might expect, his songs takes anger, depression, self-loathing, death, lost love and rough sexual gratification to an extreme. Nonetheless, his music is quite mesmerizing, rebellious, and perhaps a bit numbing at times. It’s nothing to be scoffed at; it just resonates with a different corner of our emotional spectrum. The lyrics make use of harsh language and evoke some disturbing imagery to appeal to that dark side we all possess, whether we are willing to admit it or not.
Since I’m not allowed to say that I liked anything, I’ll just talk about the couple of tracks that got my attention. The fast-paced “Beautiful Loser” is a hard-hitter, as are “Tranquilizer” and “Cemetery”. The title track is a little more moody, along with “Strangers”. Meanwhile “Whipping Haus” is downright intense, with female voices that mix pleasure and torture.
Even if you don’t consider yourself a “Goth”, the music may still resonate with you if you are in the right mood. I can’t say I would listen to this sort of music on a regular basis, but I definitely appreciate William Control’s daring to go against the grain. I’ll be digging this album out the next time I need to brood for a while.
