 |
Katie Melua - Piece By Piece
Music CD CoverArtist: Katie Melua Edition: Music CD CD Release Date: 2006-06-06 Music Label: Umvd Labels Soundtracks: - Shy Boy
- Nine Million Bicycles
- Piece by Piece
- Halfway Up the Hindu Kush
- Blues in the Night
- Spider's Web
- Blue Shoes
- On the Road Again
- Thankyou, Stars
- Just Like Heaven
- I Cried for You (Mary's Song)
- I Do Believe in Love
Free Music Notes for Piece By PieceFree Music Review: Piece by Piece Like a Piece of Dove Chocolate Hit: 5 Stars
I first heard Katie Melua perform on the Graham Norton show on BBC America, and was immediately curious to hear more.
Piece by Piece is a lovely album. Katie Melua has a voice like the smoothest, silkiest dark chocolate: sweet, fluid, without being cloying.
The first two songs, Shy Boy and 9 Million Bicycles are catchy and easy to listen to over and over.
On Piece by Piece, she uses her voice like an elegant instrument.
Halfway up the Hindukush is so tuneful, my teenage daughter and I were singing the chorus together in line at Publix last night while we waited on our deli sandwiches. To find an album that we BOTH enjoy together is a special treat, since she typically leans towards something completely different. She tells me it's got drug references in it, but if it does, it's something akin to Puff the Magic dragon- great tune, regrettable content.
Blues in the Night....well, I am a drum corps fan from way back, and that's a classic, so no complaints there. Katie does a clear, crisp, pleasing job of it. She's created her own style with it.
The backup musicians are on Piece by Piece are excellent, and I would like to hear more of them. I understand it's a solo album, but's a waste of good horns not to use them, especially for an album that has such a jazzy flavor. The harmonica player was notably good.
Blue Shoes is relaxing to the point of, well, boring. But it's the only cut that strikes me that way.
Thank You, Stars is a nice tune, and for some reason, reminds me of Petula Clark, which makes me think, I would LOVE to hear Katie Melua sing the upbeat classic Downtown.
In fact, I would like her to record an album with more upbeat songs, less minor key, bluesy stuff. Not to throw down on this album, it's great, but I would sincerely like to hear her effortless voice in a wider range of genres.
There's a reason Katie Melua is the #1 selling artist in Europe. Piece by Piece is well on it's way to being on our "most played" list on both my daughter's and my Ipods. We will be buying all her other releases to add to our CD collection, as well as looking forward to her new releases.
Piece By Piece PosterPiece By Piece, the second album by Katie Melua, comes nearly two years after the release of her multiplatinum-selling debut album Call Off The Search, and contains a larger percentage of self-penned songs than the previous album which demonstrate the significant development of Katie as a singer and writer. Features 12 total tracks including the first single, 'Nine Million Bicycles' and her cover of the Cure's 'Just Like Heaven' which was also featured on the US Soundtrack of the same name. ''Although people talk about the 'difficult second album', we have enjoyed the pressure and the pleasure of trying to get this album right for ourselves initially, rather than specifically worrying about what the audience will think'' said Katie. Dramatico. 2005. Piece by Piece--the second album from Georgia-born-chanteuse-cum-naturalised-Brit Katie Melua, and the successor to her multimillion-selling Call Off the Search--begins teasingly with the soft-pedaled "come hither" jazz flirtations of "Shy Boy" and concludes with the whispering philosophical torch-song resignation of "I Do Believe in Love." The two songs represent opposite ends of the emotional spectrum--sultry and kittenish on the one hand, solitary and ruminative on the other--but they also offer clues that the cutesy, crazy, easy listening Melua of Mike Batt's mentorship may be gradually acceding to the full bloom of self-determined musical adulthood. Melua's songs are often the more fretful and organic--the ghostly title track and the lovely "I Cried for You" are especially recommended, while the bluesier numbers (particularly the cover of the classic "Blues in the Night") seem shoehorned in gratuitously to match an anticipated demographic. Batt's contributions are melodic, memorably buoyant, and childlike. The Chinese-flavored "Nine Million Bicycles" and the naggingly catchy "Halfway up the Hindu Kush" are both charming despite their naïve pseudo-ethnicity and currently offer, particularly when compared to something as ponderously wooly as "Spider's Web," a necessary fun counterbalance to Melua's burgeoning compositional skills. At this stage, Piece by Piece fits together nicely like a little jigsaw puzzle. And even if it didn't, Melua would still sound simply ambrosial singing from a washing machine repair manual. --Kevin Maidment
|
 |