Celine Dion ~ The Colour Of My Love (album review) ... Singing of the power of love!

Style: soft rock, pop rock
Label: Sony
Year: 1993
Home: n/a

Members: Celine Dion ~ lead vocals
Steve Piggot, Claude Gaudette, Simond Frangler, Ren Klyce ~ programming
Gary Cirimelli ~ programming/b. vocals
Walter Afanasieff ~ keyboards/synth bass/programming/synth guitar
Rich Tancredi, David Foster, Russ Desalvo ~ keyboards
Bob Cadway, Tim Renwick, Michael Thompson, Dean Parks, Bob Mann ~ guitars
Peter Zizzo ~ guitar/b. vocals
Andrea Proulx ~ violin
John Pierce ~ bass
Randy Kerber ~ synths
Guy Roche ~ drums/synth
Jimmy Greco, Jimmy Bralower ~ drums
Lenny Castro, Mike Fisher ~ percussion
Jean McClain, Pauline Wilson, Larry Jacobs, Maria Christensen, Claytoven Richardson, Skyler Jett, Pam Sayne, Laquan Carter, Eddie Stockley, Kenny Bobien, Earl Robinson, Jackie Rowe, Kitty Beethovan, Charlie Dore, Jeanie Tracy, Sandy Griffin, Terry Taylor ~ b. vocals

Guest: Aldo Nova ~ guitar
Clive Griffin ~ lead vocals


CD's third English album, back in the days when she had more French albums than English, was her international breakthrough moment. From now on she would be part of the definition of what 'Adult Contemporary' music means. There's a few songwriters whose appearance on an album signals nothing but that a big chart hit, or in some cases a comeback, is desired. Desmond Child is such a name, known for boosting at an important time the careers of Bon Jovi, Aerosmith & Alice Cooper, amongst countless others. While today T-Bone Burnett is the man everyone wants to work with. But, if you don't do hard rock or folk but more soft rock then you turn to songstress Diane Warren whose magic fingers have worked with Michael Bolton, Air Supply, Gloria Estefan, Cher & countless other softer edged crooners. With four songs here from Warren's pen is it safe to assume that CD was looking for increased chart success? There should be no doubt about that. The Warren equation works out to the end. Though, arguably, has CD ever aimed for music that wasn't incredibly slick with all rough corners trimmed, commercially as perfect as one can get, with heavily textured & melodic production & screaming make me successful? No, that's CD's default moniker. Actually, it might be to her detriment as it's hard to pinpoint what exactly makes her music distinct outside of her voice. What is the CD sound? So much of her output is as by the book as it gets, Warren penned & Ric Wake produced, potentially interchangeable songs & sound with any number of other singers. Sometimes I find it hard to imagine listening to this type of super clean keyboard heavy pop on a regular basis ... then I remember I like George Michael. At least with him an acoustic guitar shows up once in awhile. I realize then it's all about whose voice you connect with the most. Do you want something sly & playful like Michael, dance pop like Tiffany, bluesy like Taylor Dayne or Lisa Stansfield or mature like CD? She fits a nice niche in the soft rock spectrum aiming for the crowd that doesn't want any of the other choices. Due to the interchangeable sound of her music none of her albums really rate too high with critics in general & this early release is as good an album to pick up as any, & includes the hits "The Power Of Love" & "When I Fall In Love" featured in the movie Sleepless In Seattle. Personally, I find this album better than later releases because it's while her reputation was still untainted by: time, her husband's gambling, Las Vegas, an overblown career & was still a diva in the making, pre-motherhood, & might say before she wore out her welcome for a lot of the audience & became a bit repetitious musically. Though, while her voice is good, none of the songs really climax or go anywhere & their imitative nature of CD's peers is more obvious than not. While there's a lack of cohesiveness to the album as each track gets a different producer & while the band isn't too extensive & many faces re-appear it's an album done piecemeal, typical for this genre, leaving a cohesive sound out of the picture. My personal favorites are "The Power Of Love", "Misled" I enjoy though it sounds like Taylor Dayne, the pop ballad "Only One Road", "Everybody's Talkin' My Baby Down", "Next Plane Out" ... it's interesting that I would list so many favorites, considering this really isn't my style of music for regular listening ... but then I do like Lisa Stansfield, Dayne, Tiffany, so I shouldn't be surprised I end up liking more than I expect! "Refuse To Dance" is a personal favorite with its dance beat & violin. I've heard Al Pitrelli recorded guitars with CD, I assume it was an album & not a show, but I can't find any album with his name in the credits though, such as this album, I find many of the Rick Wake crew who he was working with post-Alice Cooper. If anyone can direct me to which songs I would be most appreciative. Your reward is free reading of this blog for a year.

Michael Bolton ~ Michael Bolton (aka self-titled) (album review) ... The music business is a fool's game!

Style: hard rock
Label: Columbia
Year: 1983
Home: New York

Members: Michael Bolton ~ vocals/lead guitar
Bob Kulick ~ rhythm guitar
Bruce Kulick ~ guitar
Scott Zito, Craig Brooks ~ guitar/b. vocals
Michael Braun, Chuck Burgi ~ drums
Mark Clarke, Scott Zito ~ bass
Mark Mangold ~ keyboards/b. vocals
Jan Mullaney, Scott Zito, Doug Katsaros ~ keyboards
Lloyd Landesman ~ b. vocals

Guests: Aldo Nova ~ lead guitar/keyboards
George Clinton ~ keyboards/b. vocals

For fans of Journey & Foreigner ... for fans of fringe or early 80's hard rock where guitars & keyboards rule & hairspray has yet to become the sixth member of the band ... for fans of seeing where an artist was musically before they became famous ... for fans of guitarist Aldo Nova, if there are any ... for 80's era Kiss fans or those interested in brother guitarists Bob & Bruce Kulick ... & lastly for fans of liking to hear an artist they're familiar with do something entirely different. If any of the above fits then you will probably get a lot of delight out of the now forgotten, deliberately helped to be forgotten by the artist himself, third solo album by MB ... the first under the name MB having previously released two albums as Michael Bolotin & two albums with his now truly forgotten hard rock band Blackjack with Bruce Kulick. For those that only know MB as the blue-eyed soul crooner this early release should come as a shock. There's no crooner here but instead a leather pants, Jim Morrison-esque blouse wearing hard rocker who sings & plays rock guitar solos. Yes, MB once was a quite competent rock guitarist who was trying for a adaptation of a guitar wielding Robert Plant not Ray Charles or Englebert Humperdinck. It was an image that didn't last long as it found little success on its own or with Blackjack. The tour for this album, supporting the minor single "Fool's Game", only lasted a literal handful of shows before being cancelled, though it did include future stars Bruce Kulick, who left to join Kiss, Bruno Ravel of Danger Danger, keyboardist/songwriter Mark Mangold & future Megadeth/Trans-Siberian Orchestra guitarist Al Pitrelli. Another hard rock album would be released before MB changed labels & was given one of the most extensive musical & physical facelifts one could image with the rest history. Oddly, I can't recall anyone ever calling MB a fake though he's as much a label creation as the Monkees or Britney Spears. "Fool's Game" is a guitar light rock song that's so far from what would eventually come from MB's lips & pen it's an enjoyable surprise. It's really a bit too polished, cliched & tame to be a real long-lasting rocker, compared to what else was coming out at the time, but its faults are made exciting by hindsight of what would later follow from MB. It's almost a shock that MB would become as big as he did after listening to this album, not to mention his work with Blackjack & as Michael Bolotin. There are only a few clues of what he was capable of once he traded in the leather for a suit. The closest might be in closer "I Almost Believed You" which is a mix of Todd Rundgren-era Meat Loaf & future MB that comes out of nowhere. Though MB does cover of the Supremes "Back In My Arms Again" which hearkens a bit of the same spirit he'd draw more fully from in the decade ahead, but it's still in a rock mold. MB has got the voice, no doubt, but its undeveloped as he stays far away from the Ray Charles ballads that push him vocally, instead going for a Journey or Foreigner-esque pop rock ballad feel(for example "Carrie") that is more about the feel than the voice. Once the image changed he'd put down the guitar, while Kiss would pull Bruce Kulick away within a few albums, so that element got toned down if not largely removed. Before the tides turn one can enjoy three guitar solos by MB (i.e. "Fool's Game", "Hometown Hero", "Fighting For My Life") with the rest of the guitar parts taken up by Bruce Kulick (i.e. "She Did The Same Thing", "Can't Hold On, Can't Let Go"), the now forgotten chart topper Aldo Nova (i.e. "Can't Hold On, Can't Let Go", "Back In My Arms Again"), with five songs featuring 1970's Kiss co-composer & under-rated session man/producer & Bruce's brother Bob Kulick on rhythm guitar. The album is a high energy rock'n'roll affair & it's almost too bad the songs have been, deliberately, removed from the Bolton repertoire. They're not bad & certainly not embarrassing, albeit largely cliched love songs, & some of them could even be successfully reworked with the later MB sound to find renewed life. This is far from an album to shy away from. There's certainly an addicting appeal to it because the songs are so unheard, whereas the later MB catalog has been ingrained into anyone's soul who grew up in the 80's/90's that they've become stale. This is fresh, naive & genuinely fun. That's what rock'n'roll is all about.