I decided to wait until the week of release to review this album, because for once it is absolutely imperative that you buy it and don’t download it for free. Your Rachel needs you! So here, at long last, is my review…
Despite never purchasing Rachel’s debut album or even being a huge Rachel fan until this album campaign began, I decided that I would buy this album before I had heard any of the songs (except Some Girls, but that was on the last album so not an indicator of this one’s style). I decided it when I heard that the first release, Negotiate With Love, was written by the members of Vacuum, a protegée band of Alexander bard, the man behind Alcazar and Bodies Without Organs. When I actuall heard NWL I was even more certain that I would buy it, and this certainty increased with every song from and piece of news about the album that I heard.
The general theme of the album is electronic pop music which is in varying measures both sexy and fun. This album is to music what Girls Aloud’s debut was two years ago – exactly what every artist, pop or otherwise, should be aiming for, and every other British pop album of the past year (not that there have been very many at all) pales in comparison. The writing credits are shared out between the top writers in the business, and the best news is that most of them are British. A few examples are Richard X, Hannah Robinson, both Poole sisters, Brian Higgins, Miranda Cooper, Rob Davis and of course Alexis Strum whose brilliant unreleased single Nothing Good About This Goodbye is covered here (just as good in a different way, is my opinion). Anyone who believes that the British pop scene is currently lacking in musical talent should think again – the talent is simply more concentrated in writers and producers than singers at the moment, and with the kind of music this is producing, I really don’t think it’s a terrible problem.
It would be silly to list all the great songs on this album, because there are so many, and there’s little point in describing the style of the music because the singles released are a perfect representation of the cross-section of aceness presented on this CD. There are a few songs you can imagine having appeared on one of S Club’s albums (particularly the very poptastic Every Little Thing and Funny How) or perhaps Rachel’s debut (All About Me or Je M’Apelle), but there are also songs such as Crazy Boys and I Will Be There with a more mature sound, and then there’s I Said Never Again which as you’ll know by now is brilliant in every single way possible.
No pop fan’s CD collection is complete without this album. No-one is expecting it to make no.1, but we can at least buy enough to ensure it won’t be the last we hear of Rachel, because once you hear this CD you’ll want another one just as ace for every week of the year.
good review. This is one of my fave albums of all time. Such a shame it flopped.
Vanessa from Germany