Christina Aguilera Keeps Gettin’ Better and Seal Sings Soul
November 12th, 2008 - Written by stevek
Christina Aguilera is celebrating the end of her first decade as a performer. Shocking as it may seem, we’re all ten years older than when we first heard those insipid bubblegum pop sounds of “Genie in a Bottle” and “What A Girl Wants”.
Over that decade, Xtina, as she’s called by the txt msg crowd, has matured, somewhat, as an artist; grown out of her “wild girl” facade to get married and even become a mommy. She’s released three English-language albums, a Spanish-language album (largely seen as pandering to the Latino community as Aguilera, herself only learnt to speak Spanish in order to record the album) and Christmas CD (Much maligned with precision accuracy by Kelly Osborne).
‘Keeps Gettin’ Better’ purports to gather the best of Aguilera’s English language work together on one disc, with a parallel Spanish-language release slated to roll out shortly, as well. In the United States, you will only be able to purchase ‘Keeps Gettin’ Better’ at your local Target store, at least until early 2009, when it is expected to go on sale at all the usual retail outlets.
The tracks on this one include all of the singles we’ve come to know and love (or loathe) over the years, including “Genie in a Bottle”, “What a Girl Wants”, “Come on Over Baby”, “Lady Marmalade” (on the non-US edition, sorry), and the big three tracks from ‘Stripped’, namely “Dirrty”, “Fighter”, and “Beautiful”. There are also new tracks on the album-which, in my opinion, defeats the purpose of a “Best Of” or “Greatest Hits” album, but I digress. Among the new songs are the title track, “Keeps Gettin’ Better”, “Dynamite”, and a psychedelic-Pop-Beatles’-‘White Album’-sounding “You Are What You Are”, which is a remake, of sorts, of “Beautiful”. This last song is remarkable just because the elements that make up the song are unexpected, coming from Aguilera. While I find this new song has an interesting take on the original, the song loses much of its poignancy in favour of trippy blacklight overtones.
If you’re a fan of Aguilera’s work, then I recommend the album. Casual listeners might also like it; however, if you, like me, prefer Aguilera’s last two albums and the more mature sounds and thematic of ‘Stripped’ and ‘Back To Basics’, perhaps you should give it a pass.
Christina Aguilera: Keeps Gettin’ Better
RCA
Steve’s Rating: 7/10
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Seal’s seventh studio album is a brilliant, if slightly flawed, gem. On ‘Soul’, Seal has covered a dozen classic Soul and R&B hits, including “A Change is Gonna Come”, “It’s A Man’s World”, “People Get Ready” and “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long”, among several others. There’s very little to say about this record: Seal’s velvety-smooth voice singing iconic Soul classics with the masterful production of David Foster is a winning combination. The album is all but perfect.
There are three songs which I feel fall short of the greatness of the rest of the album: Seal’s rendition of “Here I am (Come and Get Me)” is too soft; he’s gentle with the song, and doesn’t seem able to punch it, robbing it of some of its strength. “If You Don’t Know Me By Now” is a little more up-tempo than the breakup ballad deserves, and Seal, who could wring emotion from a soda jingle when he’s at his best, doesn’t seem to evoke the hurt, the pain and sadness of the original by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, or for that matter, the version sung by Simply Red, in 1989. Finally, Seal’s version of “Stand by Me” just doesn’t hold a candle to the original, haunting and beautiful Ben E. King version.
Having said all that, this album is still a work of beauty in music. Seal is otherwise perfect and the quality of the music, the production and the songs themselves makes this one for the collections. Even if you’re not a fan of Seal, this is an album you must listen to.
Seal: Soul
Warner
Steve’s Rating: 8.5/10
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