Time for the reviewer to wear his heart on his sleeve: I’ve had
\na pretty crappy couple of days in terms of my personal life. It’s
\nat times like these when I turn away from the high-energy,
\nhigh-decibel rock and roll that I love so much and find myself
\nlistening to music which, though beautiful, is enough for me to
\nkeep my depression going. Make no mistake, that’s where I want to
\nbe at that moment.<\/p>\n
It may be wrong to classify Josh Groban as a depressing
\nvocalist, and I don’t mean to slight him in any way. But I’ve found
\nmyself listening to his self-titled debut album non-stop in the
\nlast few days, and it truly is an amazing release. For a young man
\nall of 20 years old, Groban has a set of pipes on him which rival
\nthose of Andrea Bocelli, albeit with not as much seasoning. But
\nthis disc suggests that Groban is most definitely a name to
\nremember.<\/p>\n
Josh Groban is unique in a few ways. First, Groban is not afraid
\nto mix traditional classical vocals (performed in Italian) with
\nadult-contemporary songs sung in English. (Groban is a Los Angeles
\nnative, making his mastery of the foreign-language numbers
\nastounding.) Second, Groban performs songs which dare to pull at
\nboth the heart strings and the brain, creating songs which move the
\nlistener in many different ways. Only the hardest of hearts won’t
\nbe melted by songs like “You’re Still You,” “To Where You Are” and
\n“Home To Stay,” three of the tracks I’ve been listening to
\nincessantly.<\/p>\n
Third, Groban dares to take standards from other artists’
\ncatalogues and try to make them his own. Admittedly, this is where
\nGroban stumbles slightly. His rendition of “Vincent” is quite nice,
\neven if I wish he had sung the entire third verse instead of coming
\nin on the second part. Likewise, he does an admirable job on “The
\nPrayer,” a duet with Charlotte Church, but it fails to live up to
\nthe version by Bocelli and Celine Dion. Sorry, Josh, but while your
\neffort is nice, Bocelli is a tough act to follow — and while I’m
\nno fan of Dion, she is superior on this song to Church.<\/p>\n
In the end, though,
\nJosh Groban<\/i> remains a very pleasant, even deep at times,
\nalbum that dares to bring contemporary classical into the homes of
\nmodern-day America. Whether it’s tackling pieces from Cirque du
\nSoleil (“Let Me Fall”) or being part of a masterful rendition of
\nBach’s “Jesu, Joy Of Man’s Desiring” featuring violinist Lili
\nHaydn, Groban creates a disc which is one step short of a
\nmasterpiece. Whether you like classical, opera, adult-contemporary
\nor rock, Josh Groban is the kind of disc that will bridge all gaps
\nbetween music fans and unite them under one umbrella.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26614,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6975],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-37861","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-josh-groban","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37861","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37861"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}