Duffy - Rockferry
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Free Music Notes for Rockferry
Free Music Review: Simply Amazing
Hit: 5 Stars
Ok, I have to admit I've been hearing the buzz about Duffy for a few months now. However, I had completely forgotten about her until her video for Mercy appeared on VH1 when I was getting dressed for work. Without hesitation, I ran to my pc, went to amazon.com and ordered this cd, along with Adele's cd, 19.
This cd is simply a great album. It does have the retro, or classic feel to it. Duffy, or Aime' Duffy, has a rich, wonderful voice and it comes across loud and clear. She's the grown-up man's Brittany Spears. In fact, I have to agree with another reviewer that said take 7 ounces of Dusty Springfield, mix 7 ounces of Petula Clark, but I'm gonna add mix another 7 ounces of Lulu and 4 ounces of Sade, and you have, whoila, the original Duffy.
Now, let's talk about the album. It simply is an amazing album and the U.S. is sparing no expense with promoting her or Adele. Why, you ask? Well, Duffy, and Adele represent a clean-cut purity that Amy Winehouse seems to lack. Yes, we love Back to Black, but it's that whole drug thing that has Americans worried. Not so here. Duffy grew up in a normal home and managed to avoid drugs. She caught a bus, for gosh sake, two hours to and fro to write this album.
This album starts off with Rockferry, adds in Warwick Avenue, Mercy, Stepping Stone, Syrup and Honey, Dreamer and a few other great songs, and you have an instant classic. Yes, this album was a collaboration and I admire Aime' Duffy for acknowledging that very thing. She's a humble lady and is on a major rollercoaster ride.
Lastly, buy the dang album. This is one incredible cd that you won't be able to stop playing. It has been in my cd player since it arrived and all of her videos are bookmarked as favorites in my youtube account. I don't know what else to say. I'm not going to get technical on you. This is a great album. Duffy has got it all: looks, a great voice, and a great talent to fill out the package. Yes, she is very easy on the eyes guys. In fact, she's darn pleasant to look at, but even more fun to listen to. You can hear the passion she has for singing and creating a tune.
Free Music Review: Duffy - Debut of an Amazing Talent and Future Superstar
Hit: 5 Stars
A friend described "Rockferry" as the greatest debut album released since the first Pretenders album. Reviewers liken her to 1960's British icon Dusty Springfield, while others term her a new "Amy Winehouse." Duffy apparently was a runner-up on the Welsh version of American Idol in 2003 or so. If she was the runner-up, then who the heck won?
She's an original and charming performer with a voice that will blast you out of your seat. All 10 songs on this debut that Duffy also co-wrote with Suede's Bernard Butler are potential breakout hits. Duffy delivers "Warwick Avenue," "Mercy," "Rockferry" and most of the other songs and B-sides linked to the album with total sincerity.
Along with friends, I attended her May 12, 2008 concert at NYC's Apollo Theater, an appropriate venue for a blue-eyed queen of soul (hence the Dusty comparisons). The set was short, only about 70 minutes or so. But Duffy and her wonderful band rocked the house, leaving the audience in awe of her vocal pyrotechnics. If you get the chance, do not hesitate to see her live.
We liked her so much that I stood in line the next day to hear her at an in-store appearance where she did a great acoustic three-song set. I haven't stood in line to meet an artist before. But it was a pleasure to have a chance to say hello and wish her well with this awesome CD. Buy a copy now when it's $6.99 on Amazon. Otherwise, the price is going to jack up as more hits emerge from this beautifully-produced set. Kudos to Rough Trade Records for putting her together with Butler and striking solid gold (do they have gold and platinum albums anymore?)
If you can, also seek out an Internet copy or check out YouTube to listen to another future #1 hit - "Breaking My Own Heart" (not a track on Rockferry).
Duffy is the real deal and deserves an amazing career. She's attractive enough to be a movie star with a voice that comes along once in a generation. She also seems like a genuinely nice person and someone who really appreciates what is sure to be a devoted fan base.
Free Music Review: The Soul of the UK
Hit: 5 Stars
Where are the latest female soul singers coming from? Detroit? New York? New Orleans? American Idol? Think again. Duffy, from Wales of all places, is one of the latest of an astonishing parade of girl singers from the British Isles who sound like Billie Holiday with modern muscle.
Whereas Billie generally came across as a victim, these new singers exhibit the conflict between being someone's lover and living as their own person. In the title track of this album, Duffy sounds like the ghost of a 60's singer who has risen up in 2008 to find that she feels perfectly at home. In this track we first hear her unique voice and style, girlishly innocent but carrying the weight of a woman's experience. Indeed, in "Syrup & Honey", she sounds like a predecessor of Janis Joplin, if you can imagine such a thing. Duffy presents her pain with dignity in "Warwick Avenue". Is the title a reference to Dionne? Might be, since the musical arrangement of "Stepping Stone" sounds very much like Dionne's "Walk On By". And in "I'm Scared", the victim shuts down completely. She mentions "...the blank pages of my diary...the closed blinds in my home...dust gathers on my stereo 'cause I can't bear to hear the radio." But her victimization isn't total. In "Serious" she suspects that things aren't right and confronts her lover. In "Delayed Devotion", her love has turned to hate. She says it, quite bluntly. And in "Mercy", she begs for release but sounds strong and in control at the same time. To find the equal of this, you'd have to go back to Aretha's early tracks, complete with obligatory backup singers.
Perhaps the conflict, the seeming paradox, is summed up in the final track, "Distant Dreamer". This one has the sound of the 60's girl-groups, with soaring melody and strings, even the "wall of sound" associated with producer Phil Spector. However, the singer of this song, far from being an accepting victim, is just playing the part while dreaming of being her own person instead of someone's accessory.
Free Music Review: No Filler... how rare is that?
Hit: 5 Stars
I think a lot of the negative reviews must reflect people's displeasure with the obviously massive marketing effort being carried out on Duffy's behalf. Either that, those reviewers just don't like soulful pop music. In addition, they seem to be making a concerted effort to cast negative votes on any positive review.
All I can say is, I enjoyed Rockferry the whole way through, which is always a shock when I'm more used to being sucked in by hype, paying full price for a recording, and then only liking a couple of songs. On Rockferry, there were only one or two songs that I didn't love at first listen, but even then, they had excellent choruses that captured my attention, and I came around to appreciating the songs just a few listens later.
To those who say Duffy doesn't seem like she really FEELS the soul, I would say that sincerity of that sort is difficult to quantify, and whether a particular singer has it or not is debatable. There's also the youth angle... some seem to think that no one who is as young as Duffy can convincingly sing soul music. There is an argument to be made there, as well as an argument against. No doubt, the older a singer gets, the more life experience he or she has to put into the work, but I think life is sufficiently difficult and complicated that young people DO know what it's like to go through difficult experiences. Nor do I think you have to have grown up in a trailer or to have been abused by your parents from the age of two to experience depression, sadness, existential angst and the like. So give Duffy a break. She is the age she is.
Don't hate her because you hate her marketing campaign!
If you at all like soulful music, go out and buy this. Well, let me revise that... listen to a couple of the 30 second samples and make sure that this is your type of music, and if you like what you hear, believe me, the rest of the album won't let you down. It's sinfully cheap right now on Amazon, but it would easily be worth it at full price.
Free Music Review: Gets better every time I hear it
Hit: 5 Stars
Likened to Dusty Springfield, and other great female vocalists seems like high praise, and it's richly deserved. But Duffy exudes a soulful charm, and individual style that's essentially all her own, despite a strange deja vous you get when listening to her range.
Powerful rich vocals, great acoustic and backing accompaniment and a soulful approach, put this diminutive Welsh singer almost in a league of her own.
I bought the album having heard only the title track, and the upbeat "Mercy" which for those who remember that far back, made me feel like I was in a scene from Our Man Flint, or more recently the spoof 60's flicks of Austin Powers.
As great as these two tracks are, they are but a taste of the other excellent songs on this album, all of which I loved, and which got better every time I heard them. The heartfelt almost begging of "Syrup & Honey", the gentle sway of "Stepping Stone" and the emotional depth of "I'm Scared" didn't just put me in mind of the aforementioned Dusty Springfield, but also Brenda Lee, Elkie Brooks, and even Etta James, and many more.
Another great power of the album is it's pure soul, and blues approach. To many it will evoke memories of simpler times, when singers sang, and musicians played without the need for mixing and synthesizers, but make no mistake, this is contemporary stuff, made for today.
It won't be to everyones taste, and one wonders in today's mass media pop culture whether it's target audience (assuming that it is aimed at the pop and top 40 crowd)may find it too slow, or not upbeat enough to keep pace with the marketplace. Whether that's the case or not, and Duffy's fan base get's marginalized out of the billboard charts, the album stand's on it's own merits. Too early to call it a modern "classic", but this is great stuff. I look forward to more from Duffy soon. 5 stars.