I had…and still have…high hopes for the Irish pop\/rock\/Celt
\nband The Corrs. When they’re on, their harmonies are brilliant;
\nAndrea, Sharon, and Caroline Corr have a preternatural ability for
\nhaunting melodies, Sharon’s fiddle playing is magical, and John
\nCorr is a fine instrumentalist. Save for Canada’s The Rankins,
\nthey’re the most talented Celt\/pop vocal ensemble out there. So I
\nbought
\nTalk On Corners<\/i>, their second CD, as soon as it came out —
\nand have played it perhaps three times since then.<\/p>\n
Sophomore slump hits with a vengeance, and it’s a damned shame.
\nThere’s no getting around it; on their first album, the Corrs were
\nan ethereal, richly harmonic band weaving pop sensibility with
\ntraditional Irish melodies and instruments. On
\nTalk On Corners<\/i>, they’re Riverdance meets Wilson Phillips,
\nand it’s enough to make you wince.<\/p>\n
The lyrics, always the Corrs’ weakest part, have slipped into
\ninsipidity at several points — “And I would be preening in
\nparadise \/\/ If I were always beside him like a Siamese…” Please.
\nThis vapid, wide-eyed guy-worshipping mentality is laced throughout
\nthe CD like the trail of a saccharine snail; it’s unworthy of the
\ntalent, and more appropriate for the latest Britney N’Sync CD. If
\nthis is what working with Carole Bayer Sager causes, I suggest an
\nantidote be worked out for the sake of humanity.<\/p>\n
Another problem is a definite manifestation of too-many-cooks
\nsyndrome. With seven producers for fourteen tracks, it’s impossible
\nto gain any sort of consistent sound from
\nTalk On Corners<\/i>. Tracks like their cover of Fleetwood Mac’s
\n“Dreams” are the best reflection; why is it that a gorgeous cover
\nin three part harmony was sullied by a
\n
\ndrum machine<\/i>
\n<\/b> ? And a badly programmed drum machine at that? John Corr can
\nprogram a drum machine — he did so on the Rankins’ “Weddings,
\nWakes, and Funerals”. So why did producer Oliver Leiber screw it up
\nhere? The Corrs should have stuck with a horse that runs and
\nretained former Chicago producer David Foster for all the tracks on
\nthis CD, as they did on their first CD,
\nForgiven Not Forgotten<\/i>.<\/p>\n
And finally, where are the instrumentals?
\nForgiven Not Forgotten<\/i> had four, including the brilliant
\n“Toss The Feathers”;
\nTalk On Corners<\/i> has one, a pretentious Enigmaesque
\ndrum-machine and synth thing called “Paddy McCarthy” that even
\nSharon’s fiddle can’t save.<\/p>\n
There
\nare<\/i> some high points on here. The aforementioned “Dreams”
\nworks despite the drum line; the opening track, “Only When I
\nSleep”, is insistent and complex; “Queen Of Hollywood” has a
\nhigh-arching, driving melody, strong and powerful; and
\nsurprisingly, the Corrs’ cover of Jimi Hendrix’s “Little Wing” is
\npleasant and dreamy. The rest of the CD, though, is mostly musical
\ncream-of-wheat, bland, lumpy, and boring.<\/p>\n
There’s a brilliant CD in the Corrs — they’ve got too much
\ntalent to do otherwise. But this CD, scattered, unfocused, and
\nwatered down, isn’t it; in fact, it’s a signpost towards the Wrong
\nDirection. Let’s hope the Corrs get back to their roots.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":25036,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6118],"rating":[11204],"class_list":["post-36241","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-corrs","rating-rating-c-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36241"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36241"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}