Seal: Soul
Seal covers a dozen classics on Soul
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Saturday, 15, Nov 2008 05:14
WEA International, out now.
In a nutshell...
Seal in soulful, Obamatastic mood.
What's it all about?
Seal covers a dozen songs by the likes of Sam Cooke, Al Green, Otis Redding and James Brown. Media reports claim he was inspired to record Sam Cooke's A Change Is Gonna Come following the rise of Barack Obama - you know, the guy who's going to be leader of the free world. Mr Obama even referred to the song in his victory speech: "It's been a long time coming, but... change has come to America."
Who's it by?
Henry Olusegun Kwassi Olumide Adelo Samuel aka Seal.
As an example...
"It's been too hard living, but I'm afraid to die/I don't know what's up there beyond the sky/It's been a long time coming/But I know a change is gonna come." - A Change Is Gonna Come
Likelihood of a trip to the Grammys
If James Blunt can get nominated for Record of the Year, anyone can.
What the others say
"Seal is a fine singer, whose flavourful tenor combines the smoothness of old-school crooners like Johnny Mathis with a pleasing hint of down-home grit. But... Soul is an unnecessary record." - Jody Rosen, Rolling Stone
So is it any good?
The 1990s was largely a terrible decade for music (yeah, I like Oasis too, but they're very much part of the receding tide of rock 'n' roll, rather than the high watermark). If the 1970s represented the weird hangover from the experimentalism and druggy excess of the 1960s, then the 1990s was the mundane backdraft from the greed and political partisanship of the 1980s. I mention this because Seal was central to creating the soundtrack of that decade, along with the likes of Enya, Right Said Fred, countless awful boybands and the Spice Girls.
To be fair, Seal was far from the worst act out there in the 1990s - that honour must surely go to either Whigfield or B*Witched. Likewise, this is far from the worst covers album you'll find out there.
When covering songs by the likes of Sam Cooke and James Brown, you've got to be fairly confident you're going to do a decent job of it. After all, why would anyone want to listen to an album of someone doing cover versions of songs that are only half as good as the originals?
Seal has just about pulled it off. His version of A Change Is Gonna Come is pretty good and should be on every Obamaniac's playlist. However, the level of reinterpretation on this album is limited, which inevitably makes you question its overall value.
8 /10
Mike Cotgreave
Seal: A Change Is Gonna Come