| Silk - Always And Forever |
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| Written by Donna Prima | ||||
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After making a name for themselves as one of the preeminent 90s new-jack swing/hip-hop/R&B ballad slingers, the romance mongers knew they had something when at concerts they would do covers in between their original baby-making material - precise covers that made the crowd go crazy. Among the gang of cover albums that have been released in the past few months, the set stands out as a true homage to the songs they cover. Instead of "interpreting" the tunes, the quartet channel them, almost perfectly mimicking note for note, nuance for nuance, octave for octave. If you thought Prince was the only male (with perhaps the exception of Earth Wind & Fire's Phillip Bailey) who could hit the ridiculously high falsetto notes in the Purple One's classic classic "Adore," Silk will prove you wrong. The Atlanta group glides between well-loved joints such as Switch's searing "There Will Never Be," to Michael Jackson's sensual "Lady In My Life," to Blue Magic's timeless "Sideshow," to the legendary title track from Heatwave.
And while paper thin production does nothing to compliment this incredible vocal labor of love, the stumbling point is the same as its apex. Whereas the originals floated on the soul of the original vocalists, you can visualize Silk working for that exact high note, that exact nuance, instead of just letting it flow. As a result the passion gets lost in the translation, and the vocalists get caught up in the technique, but again, it might be impossible for a mere mortal to precisely interpret another human being's soul. Download: "There Will Never Be" "Lady In My Life" "Adore" "Two Occasions"
To purchase CDs, click on the cover art or title link. To legally download, click on the iTunes logo. If you do not have iTunes, you can download it here by clicking the "download iTunes" logo above. |
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