Quote:
Originally Posted by Pyewacket
How are you doing with it now, days later? I have to admit I was shocked at how slow the first three songs unfolded. It was sort of like watching a theatre curtain go up...part way...then stop...and then rise some more.
But I love it. Most of it (still not crazy about the Elton John Duet).
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I'm still really struggling, to be quite honest. There is no question that this is a
beautiful piece of music in the same way that a choir singing a hymn is a beautiful sound. But despite its beauty, it's not the sort of thing that begs repeated listening or closer inspection. This album is just soooo expansive, meandering and empty; I keep wishing there was a way I could boil it and condense it into something more urgent and musically compelling. The heart of the problem resides within the song "Lake Tahoe," which is sooo long and sooo aimless... and even grating at times. And it seems that Kate features her guest vocalists more prominently than her own voice; arguably her son does more singing on "Snowflake" than Kate herself. Even more succinct songs like "Among Angels" suffer from having no distinctive melody, let alone some semblance of a time signature. The song "Misty" reminds me of something from Jane Siberry's 1995 album
Maria, which, suprise-surprise, was largely improvised. But unfortunately for Kate, Jane did the meandering jazzy siren thing much better.
I understand from hearing recent interviews with Kate that this is the type of direction she was thinking about going for a while. And I applaud her nerve and chutzpah to do something like this. After all, perhaps with age, she may have grown weary of the 3-minute pop song structure. But then after listening to
The Director's Cut again, I was reminded that Kate still has that amazing voice and the ability to do amazingly extraordinary things with it, e.g., "Lily." And nothing on 50WFS can compare to the haunting beauty of "Never Be Mine."
Am I the only one scratching my head over the avalanche (pun intended) of glowing reviews for this album?