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Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Aalborg
Posts: 7,636
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Seal - Seal (1991)
Allmusic.com puts the following genre tags on this album:
- Adult contemporary
- Contemporary pop/rock
- Club/dance
- Dance-pop
Allmusic's genre/style tags get a bit odd at times, but there you go. Might be interesting given the things that were said above my review in this thread.
Let's get into it. Track by track:
1. The Beginning
Fantastic textures and a rather good vocal melody. The musical backing really carries it well. Seal's voice is expressive and nuanced. He's definetely a talented performer. The electronic drums are somewhat dated and the weakest link here, but I'm going to have to forgive that since I wouldn't wonder if most of the album has them.
The song drags on a bit longer than it should have, and I can see the song lengths are generally on the flabby side here, so I don't hope it will be much of a problem from here on.
2. Deep Water
I frankly didn't enjoy the acoustic first half of the song, but then the song suddenly changes style entirely midway through. I'm feeling torn on this one. In some ways it is sort of interesting and it's clearly well made, but it also recalls all sorts of music that I plainly don't like. Surprisingly in your face lyrics for such a smooth, mom-radio friendly song: "we shed our pain, and then we die".
The vocal passage near the end makes me think of Robbie Williams. I'd rather not be reminded of Robbie Williams.
3. Crazy
Crazy how this starts out evoking cool 90's video game soundtracks; especially that of Crusader: No Remorse.
Oh wait, here's a chorus. I know this song! One of those hundreds of songs you've heard in passing, probably dozens of times, but just somehow never really noticed the details of.
I like the bass in this song. The song also flows quite well. A breakdown in the middle works pretty well, except maybe I'm not sure I agree with putting that wah-pedalled guitar there. Oh well, pretty good song.
4. Killer
The track starts off recalling that Deep Forest/Peter Gabriel track that plays in the credits of the sci-fi movie Strange Days. Odd connection to make, I know.
Then the verse starts up and... this is a sort of odd groove. I can't help but draw lines to 90's video game soundtracks again. I can't come up with any specific titles, but all the ****ing samples here really, really have me convinced I've heard ALL of them in various DOS game soundtracks. This is early 90's music allright.
I don't feel like I'm completely on board with the vocal melodies in the verse/chorus here, but I do enjoy the backing track.
Then we get to the expected change after the second chorus and... things get pretty nutty. That's some pretty cool sample layering.
Ok I'm getting along with the chorus by now. He's got a really great color to his voice at times.
Time to mention that this track was 6 minutes and 21 seconds long, yet didn't feel drawn out. Only the first track has suffered from that yet.
5. Whirlpool
First reaction: Oh no, not acoustic Seal again.
More bluesy than expected. The song runs pretty dynamically, with barely there guitar under the chorus segment, agitated guitar during the verse.
It's allright. I would have to listen to this more to really get a feel for it.
6. Future Love Paradise
That sounds like a title Prince would have come up with. Except then it would have been "Eye Welcome U 2 the Future Paradise of Love".
Pretty fun bass in this track. Some softened funkiness, but somehow I feel like the music is still quite boring in this track. Apart from the bass, it's a pretty bland textural approach, really just aimed at supporting the basic harmonic shifts of the song, while not actually doing anything interesting on it's own.
Overall I don't feel like adult contemporary is the right term for this album, but apart from the bass, the music in this track is pure adult contemporary goop.
7. Wild
Starts off very much NOT wild. Those descending chords caught me off guard though. Then the vocals come in and I'm slowly getting worried this will be dull.
Basically take the negative things I said about the previous track and amplify it by a factor of 4. Saving the filler for late on the album, I guess.
8. Show Me
Very new-agey vibe in the beginning. Becomes a partially major key, soft, ballad like track.
I'm confirmed that they save the fillers for last. This is just flat out boring, not to mention how it sounds like a million other boring songs.
9. Violet
Interesting synths coming in shortly after we begin. I'm afraid this will soon devolve into more AC blandness. Some subtle synth and bass work suggest I just might be wrong. I'm still waiting for the song to 'begin' as I realize it will probably mostly stay on this very restrained level. Definitely way better than the previous three misfires. Wait... this song is 8 minutes and 30 seconds long! How the hell is that going to work out? I'm not too positive that it will, but I'll be patient and just see where it goes. 3½ minutes in so far, still very, very gentle. Starts feeling like a song could fade out here, but it won't be doing that.
Some kick drums come in, but otherwise things stay the same for a good while. A snare joins, but still no change in the rest of the music. A voice talking in the background. I suppose this is intentionally repetitive as to let you ride on the atmosphere. Little variations in the synth, bass and piano gives this a feeling of a very, very restrained, slow-jam. Later; another voice, a synth-saxophone or something... but this is essentially the ending of this track: a 5 minute slow jam to the end. It's allright. Great production job on this album in general, but I feel like the first half of the album was still considerably stronger.
Allright, so Anteater mentioned wanting people out of their comfort zones, so I'm thinking about where this album sits compared to what's on my CD shelves. Some of the early, poppier tracks could be slightly compared to early/mid 90's Kylie minogue. The smooth pop/soul mixture compares somewhat to Julia Fordham's early album, Swept. I've got several things that have some kind of adult contemporary component, but I don't have much that takes on a more soul/r&b approach. This album is both a little outside of what I really like to listen to and it's also a bit on the boring side, due to a weak second half. I liked the dancier side of this album best. When Seal starts to softly croon about love and whatnot, I'm starting to feel bored. There were some highlights for sure and there's no denying the careful work that went into this album.
Like with any album in here, I'll just have to folow my gut and be honest:
5/10. Many good things here, but also a lot that bored me and felt disappointing.
Last edited by MicShazam; 10-15-2017 at 04:18 PM.
Reason: plenty of spelling errors
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