Chrisette Michele - I Am
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Free Music Notes for I Am
Free Music Review: Excellent!!
Hit: 5 Stars
Chrisette is the truth. That's all I can say. This is a must have album in my opinion. When I saw her perform this summer in NYC, she gave me goosebumps. Simply amazing. Free Music Review: The best album
Hit: 5 Stars
This album is great! I can't stop listening to it. Sometimes when you buy an album, you only like one or two songs. I love all of them. My favorite songs are If I had my way (I thought this would be the only song I liked) now my favorite is Be okay. Mr. Radio is good too! I reccommend everyone buy this album!Free Music Review: Can't Stop Listening
Hit: 5 Stars
I only purchased this for one song, but after listening to the entire CD, I can't stop. Every song is good...you must buy and listen to it all.Free Music Review: A REAL singer!
Hit: 5 Stars
Completely amazing CD! I am totally mesmerized by it! To those real fans of Erica Badu, Chaka Khan, DO NOT SLEEP on this one.Free Music Review: A very commendable debut
Hit: 5 Stars
Like many, I first became aware of Chrisette Michele last year when she appeared on two high profile hip hop albums; on "Lost One", on Jay-Z's Kingdom Come and on "Still Dreaming" (with Kanye West) and "Can't Forget About You" on Nas's Hip Hop Is Dead.
It shouldn't be news to anyone reading this that she put in a praiseworthy performance on each of these appearances. Even so, when I heard she was coming out with a solo album, I immediately imagined her joining the long list of chart & radio-friendly but instantly forgettable pop/r&b princesses. But more or less every review I read whether it be here on Amazon or anywhere else was positively glowing and so I decided to check her out. I am very pleased that I did.
The first remarkable thing about Michele is her voice obviously, and she's lucky to have one of those voices that is unique in its rawness (I can definitely hear echoes of similarly gifted people like Billie Holiday and Erykah Badu) and is instantly recognisable. Add that to the fact that she actually knows how to sing - she sings with a rare combination of vulnerability and with emotion, and I actually believe every word she says - and I'm thinking here is a young woman who could go very far.
The other outstanding thing about her in my view, is her choice of song and producer. Maybe she thought it up all on her own, maybe she had good advice but the bottom line is she's chosen very well. The tracks produced by the likes of Babyface ("Best Of Me", "Your Joy"), Salaam Remi ("In This For You") and will.i.am ("Be OK", "Let's Rock") are as good as one might expect them to be but the ones produced by people I've never heard of before like Mo Jaz and GI Joe are surprisingly good too. Even the John Legend produced "Love Is You" turned out better than I expected it to. Neo-soul, acoustic soul, hip hop soul, the girl does it all and the whole thing comes together in a lovely package of beautiful songs with interesting lyrics (except for "Like A Dream"; the lyrics to that one are banal beyond belief) that show the breadth of Michele's vocal talent and the depth, one would assume, of her personality as she wants to present it to the world. And while I wouldn't dare try it with a few female vocalists I could mention, this at least is one CD I could play with my young nieces around. In other words, it's all relatively clean wholesome stuff.
My favourite tracks? "Work It Out", "If I Had My Way", "Best Of Me", "Your Joy", "Good Girl", "Be OK", "Mr. Radio", "Golden", "Love Is You", "Is This The Way Love Feels" and even the hidden bonus track (I'm not sure what it's called. "I Am One"?) on which Michele shows her support for to women who find themselves pregnant by "mistake" alongside people who have suffered losses in recent tragedies like 9/11, Hurricane Katrina and, from what I can gather from the lyrics, war and famine.
It's very rare for me to like so many songs on a non-jazz album. This is a very commendable debut and a very pleasant surprise indeed. If there's a better new female vocalist out this year, I haven't heard her yet.