Corinne Bailey Rae: The Sea
Corinne Bailey Rae: The Sea
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By Darren Estwick. |  |
Sunday, 31, Jan 2010 05:47
Virgin, out February 1st.
What's it all about?
A compelling mix of the pleasant, the soulful, and the wistful, this collection allows peeping moments of personal sadness without ever giving into anything even remotely near self-indulgence. While some might be confused by the mixture of Phil Spector-paced rock-lite, coffee shop jazz, and melancholic, soulful introspections about death, Rae gets the balance of different styles for her 11-track album just about as right she could have done.
Who's it by?
Corinne Bailey Rae sprang into the mainstream with the hit Put Your Records On in early 2006, following various minor collaborations which included working with Mark Hill from Artful Dodger, and the New Mastersounds. Her self-titled, Grammy-winning debut album sold over four million copies worldwide and several tracks from it also featured on the soundtrack to Venus. Although Rae's market appeal has mainly centred around a non-taxing soft pop sound, Rae discovered her love of hard jazz when she began working as a hat check girl at her local jazz club while studying English Literature at Leeds University (she was allowed to sing on stage with the band "when business was slow") and also fronted a feminist all-girl rock group called Helen, in the 1990s, who were inspired by the likes of Veruca Salt, and for a short while were signed to heavy metal label Roadrunner Records, where they had the likes of Slipknot as label mates.
After the death of her jazz musician husband Jason Rae in March 2008, Rae took a step back from music, and The Sea marks her return to creativity since this tragic event.
As an example...
"All my life/It's not right/Nobody ever told me I could do something/Nobody ever told me I could be something/I'd have tried, I'd have tried... " - Paper Dolls
"I've never felt more powerless/There's so much blood on the streets/So much hope refused/So many grainy teenage photographs on the evening news." - Love's On Its Way
"You can keep it all locked up in your leaden chest/Or you can lay mouth open on the water's edge/But all your angels and your God will stitch and wash you/And I would like to call it beauty." - I Would Like To Call It Beauty
Likelihood of a trip to the Grammys?
Well, Rae is no stranger to the Grammys. She won three Grammy nominations in 2007 (not to mention making a very good impression as a live artist when she performed with John Legend and John Mayer on stage at the awards), and the following year she won Album of the Year, and Best Contemporary Jazz Album, as well as a nomination in a third category. In fact she's a popular winner at all sorts of awards shows, including Q Awards, Brit Awards, and MOBOs. All together she's won a total of ten big-name awards, and been nominated for a further 21.
The Sea might not have any obvious hits to the size of Put Your Records On - but then that song was always a bit of a grower anyway. It would be hard, however, for critics and award ceremonies alike to ignore such a previously acclaimed talent when she shows herself to be so resolutely attempting to challenge herself with new levels of depth.
What the others say?
"Her vocals have taken on a smoky quality that lends depth to even the more lightweight material." - Rebecca Gonsalves, Independent
"[Her voice is] somehow altered... deeper and more nuanced, more like a jazz singer than a modern pop one." - Sean O'Hagan, Observer
"Singing her way back to the light through the darkness." - Helen Brown, Daily Telegraph
So is it any good?
At first, you could be forgiven for dismissing The Sea as almost bland. In spite of the lovely-but-lyrically-eerie opening song Are You Here?, there is a distinct feeling of "where is this going?!" It's much like a very pleasant country walk which is sunny and delightful but has no particular direction, and it makes no difference whether you turn left, right, or just turn round, at any given time.
I'd Do It Again timidly creeps in as the second track with its broad chorus and clean vocal, and you might feel slightly cheated by the ostensible lack of energy - although the lyrics, about love being worth the inevitable patches of hurt, are very touching. When the rolling piano intro of Feels Like the First Time breaks in, however, it becomes increasingly difficult not to be captivated by the whisper of subtle melody, brilliantly led through its twists and turns by Rae's haunting vocal. And by the time the fun-sized rock of The Blackest Lily cuts in, Rae is in full flow with her talent, demonstrating not just a pretty voice and sweetly melancholic tunes, but also that she hasn't forgotten how to write a catchy chorus for an excellent pop song.
But Rae doesn't revisit the unchallenging, but universally known pop of Put Your Records On anywhere on The Sea; not even with lively, tuneful tracks like The Blackest Lily, Paris Nights/New York Mornings and Paper Dolls. The death of Jason Rae permeates every aspect of the record - even the decision to embrace jazz much more fully than she has done on previous records is surely a nod to his own musical stylings. Yet there is no outpouring of devastating emotion being dumped on the listener - nor is there any sense of her musical craft being second to her own personal emotions. Perhaps the greatest gem of the collection is Closer, (already marked up for Jazz FM's playlist); a simple but sophisticated jazz song, with easy fluid vocals, and lyrics about keeping the positive in a relationship, and letting go of the negative - about as far from misery and death as you can get. And even the songs which are very clearly about the loss Jason Rae - Are You Here? and the intimate I Would Like To Call It Beauty - focus more on his memory still being in her heart, and on the idea of finding beauty even in the darkest aspects of love, respectively, than they are discussions of emptiness, loneliness, or raw hallow darkness.
It's not a perfect record. Closer suggests that Rae could have pushed still further beyond Norah Jones-style coffee shop jazz and hit the mark exceedingly well, but The Sea is simply too modest to break any boundaries. But on hearing such a poignant and honest exploration of grief being translated so deftly into a collection of mild but intriguing songs, it would be heartless to dismiss it just because there's no Winehouse-style self-destruction or rage. In fact, the most wonderful thing about what Rae has shaped is that this is not an album about the pain of loss; it is an album about the beauty of being alive and having loved someone in the first place.
8/10
Louise McCudden