Since it is a karaoke mainstay in my neck of the woods I had high hopes but I don't really dig her version. She doesn't improve or change the original at all methinks. At least the Peabo Bryson & Natalie Cole version made it into a duet and messed with the timing. She has a nice voice when she really uses it, she should stay away from easy numbers and go bigger with it.
I tried to spend some time with her record back around the time it came out, but ultimately could not get with it.
I think her involvement with dance music has done good things for her rhythmic sense and pacing, but not her melodic sense or her phrasing. To me, she kinda always sounds like she's singing hooks.
Or maybe it's not the dance-music background; maybe it's that Joni-Mitchell-via-Aaliyah trickle-down thing in r&b where they keep the all-over-the-map, jazz-type phrasing but ditch most of the connective tissue. That slightly disjointed, futurist sound, you know?
Whatever it is, it's choppy in a way that I find limiting. I can see why producers and remixers might love that kind of discrete, portionable flow, but as a basic listener, it mostly leaves me cold.
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I think her involvement with dance music has done good things for her rhythmic sense and pacing, but not her melodic sense or her phrasing. To me, she kinda always sounds like she's singing hooks.
Or maybe it's not the dance-music background; maybe it's that Joni-Mitchell-via-Aaliyah trickle-down thing in r&b where they keep the all-over-the-map, jazz-type phrasing but ditch most of the connective tissue. That slightly disjointed, futurist sound, you know?
Whatever it is, it's choppy in a way that I find limiting. I can see why producers and remixers might love that kind of discrete, portionable flow, but as a basic listener, it mostly leaves me cold.