Oh my God oh my God oh my God! I just had the kiefest idea. What
\nif we got Vanessa-Mae to be Geri’s replacement for the Spice
\nGirls??? She’s a Brit herself, she can air-sing like them, she
\ndresses like them (of COURSE I’ve noticed all that glitter in her
\ncleavage), and just look at the silly one-liners in her album liner
\nnotes: “Storm. Powerful natural. Frightened? Then hide from it. If
\nnot, enjoy it.” Add in the background for “Spice Up Your Life” and
\nwe have… voila!… Catgut Spice. Stradivarius Power!<\/p>\n
What was EMI thinking when they released “I Feel Love” as a
\nvideo? Most of it has her breathlessly singing the words “I feel
\nlove” over and over again over an electronica background (almost no
\nviolin). While the ethereal vocalizing in the intro of “I’m A Doun”
\n(a Celtic melody fused with African voices and drums) certainly
\nshows above average talent in Enya-like control, she pushes the
\nenvelope in songs like “Embrasse Moi (You Fly Me Up)” and “I Feel
\nLove”. Both songs are lyric-based, but it’s obvious that
\nVanessa-Mae is no extraordinary vocal talent. “Who Do You Think You
\nAre?”<\/p>\n
But few would question her extraordinary fiddling talent.
\nWhether it’s a hyperspeed dance arrangement like “(I) Can, Can
\n(You?)” or easy listening bordering on the New Age in “A Poet’s
\nQuest (for a Distant Paradise)”, her enthusiasm is foot-stamping in
\nthe former, bleeding into the air in the latter. “Retro” and
\n“Leyenda” are a step-up from the underdone atmospheric qualities of
\nher last pop album, but it’s still no Sarah Brightman or symphonic
\nLed Zeppelin.<\/p>\n
Although a lot less obvious now, there are still some
\nexperiments with samples and effects going on in machine-inspired
\n“Aurora” and the oversampled, overloaded arrangement of “Bach
\nStreet Prelude” (breaking the mold is fine, as long as it’s not
\ndone out of necessity). In “The Blessed Spirits”, she even steps
\naside to let less appetizing synthesizers take over the focus. But
\nI’ve always loved it when she played her electric violin like an
\nelectric guitar; “Hocus Pocus” is amazing, conjuring images of the
\nmulti-armed Hindu God Shivva.<\/p>\n
“I’m A Doun” sounded a lot better when it came after a suite of
\nScottish folk songs for violin in
\nThe Classical Album 1<\/i>, though it’s still the best track on
\nthe entire album (who’d have thought the two ethnic cultures would
\nfuse together so beautifully?). Speaking of a sense of belonging,
\n“Happy Valley” (a Chinese choir number overlaid with violin,
\nperformed during the Hong Kong handover ceremony) is misplaced by
\nthe artist’s own admission. To have it appear on the same album as
\n“I Feel Love” is like having Madonna singing Chinese opera.<\/p>\n
To be honest, the music in
\nThe Violin Player<\/i> was experimental at best and none too
\ndeep. The sheer freshness of having a violin making that kind of
\nmusic (throw in some sexy tank-top videos) was its selling point.
\nDepth is still not an issue; “Storm” is more of a celebration of
\nBritish-style honest-to-goodness airplay-pop. Less thought
\nprovoking but definitely more entertaining than
\nChina Girl – The Classical Album 2<\/i>. Keep it next to your
\ncopy of
\nSpiceworld<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":27938,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5657],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-39327","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-vanessa-mae","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39327","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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39327"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}