{"id":41938,"date":"2010-04-08T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-08T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/soulbook\/"},"modified":"2010-04-08T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-04-08T00:00:00","slug":"soulbook","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/soulbook\/","title":{"rendered":"Soulbook"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was driving down the highway recently with a mate and our lengthy conversation singing the praises of James Brown\u2019s classic period was crudely brought to a halt when the CD changer did its business and spat out the first track on Soulbook<\/i>, a lifeless cover of \u201cIt\u2019s The Same Old Song.\u201d As we drove, skipping and relaying tracks, my mate couldn\u2019t take anymore and summed it up best when he turned to me and said, \u201cWhat the hell happened to this guy?\u201d Later that night, I gave it another chance (one of several) to impress me in some way, but after an hour or so, I gave in and threw it away in disgust.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

I should have known that based on Rod Stewart\u2019s recent offerings, this one wasn\u2019t going to be any different. I did, however, expect a reenergized Stewart to come out firing, since I\u2019ve read countless interviews with the man professing his love for soul music and crediting it for influencing his decision to start singing. This disc, however, contains nothing that even closely resembles soul music; in fact, I\u2019ve heard more soulful songs in several elevators throughout Melbourne.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

The most painful aspect of listening to this tripe is Rod\u2019s voice, which is now barely able to get through a few words before creaking and cracking like a rusty old gate. Hearing him trying to hit those high notes on a horrid cover of \u201c(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher And Higher\u201d is one of the most pathetic things I\u2019ve ever heard a singer attempting to do. Why the producers thought this was acceptable I\u2019ll never know, but short of pulling the plug altogether, there\u2019s not much anyone could have done to rescue this turkey.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

A great old song like \u201cLove Train\u201d is put to death here by a flat and lifeless arrangement and Stewart\u2019s raspy, bass-less monotone; the backing vocals are its only saving grace. Stewart\u2019s idol, Sam Cooke, is covered here with a careful but ill-advised up-tempo version of \u201cWonderful World,\u201d which is hands down the worst interpretation of this great song I\u2019ve ever heard.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Another completely unnecessary choice was the dreadful cover of Simply Red\u2019s classic \u201cIf You Don\u2019t Know Me By Now.\u201d The track was originally released by a little known soul group in the early \u201870s, but the Red nailed it and it became one of their most-loved hits. But Stewart took all of the feeling out of the song because his voice is now unable to convey any emotion at all.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

He does get some help on a few tracks, as Stevie Wonder plays some harmonica on his own \u201cMy Cherie Amour,\u201d which sports an almost passable performance from Stewart. Jennifer Hudson (nothing wrong with her performance) sings on the grotesque cover of \u201cLet It Be Me\u201d which sums up everything that is wrong with this album in a few short minutes. The great Smokey Robinson also graces one of his <\/i>own songs with a faithful and not-half-bad cover of \u201cTracks Of My Tears.\u201d\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Smokey\u2019s harmony vocals are sublime and instantly reveal Stewart\u2019s shortcomings as a singer these days. Hands-down the best track on this disc is \u201cYou Make Me Feel Brand New,\u201d on which Stewart is again owned by his guest vocalist \u2013 this time a stunning vocal by Mary J. Blige, who has become one of the great modern day soul singers.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

I won\u2019t continue because nothing more could possibly be said about how shockingly bad Soulbook<\/i> really is and how out of touch Rod Stewart is these days. So, Scotty, I don\u2019t know what happened to this guy, but I can tell you one thing \u2013 if he doesn\u2019t give it up soon, he runs the risk of reducing himself to a complete joke, and with a back catalogue as great as his, that would be an even greater shame than the crap that he continues to serve up.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

P.S. The only thing that saved this from an F rating is the presence of Smokey and Mary J.<\/o:p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":30284,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6031],"rating":[11203],"class_list":["post-41938","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-rod-stewart","rating-rating-d-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41938","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\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41938"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}