Search - Corinne Bailey Rae :: The Sea

Oh, Corrine..

Santana C. Benitez | Qatar/Germany/Washington D.C. | 02/22/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"She has such a dreamy way about her...I couldn't stop thinking about the loss she had to endure with her husband's passing and I was especially touched by the cover, where she still wears her wedding ring.





Some highlights:





"Are You Here"- has some really crushing lyrics, she really loved that man. I thought this song would set the tone for the album, but it ended up being so wonderfully varied ;)



"I'd Do It All Again"- sounds like something from her debut album, and that's totally cool with me. This is probably my FAVORITE on the album. I love the faint male vocals at the end "someone to looooove"..unexpected and soulful.



"Paris Nights/New York Mornings"-despite it's upbeat sound, the lyrics are a bit sad to me. I imagine its her revisiting old memories that she shared with her late husband. The overly-emotional water sign in me tears up a bit at the thought...I'm such a crybaby haha.



"Closer"-sexy and groovy. This is something I'll blast while cleaning my house cooking dinner, or driving around with my windows rolled down on warm evenings.





"The Sea"- a nice ending to a lovely album. I find myself replaying this one quite a bit.



This is a reallllly chill album and I think it's beautiful that Corrine was so open to sharing her music after such a time of grief. We need more talented singer-songwriters like her. Keep your pretty little head up, Corrine!

"

Powerful, profound, a complete work of art-- actually, four

Christopher Lake | Albuquerque, NM | 05/15/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Most fans of Corinne Bailey Rae probably already know about the "background" of this CD, but for those who don't, she recorded it while in the process of grieving for her late husband, Jason Bruce Rae, who died, suddenly, of an accidental drug overdose (he had been trying to quit). However (and I believe that this fact is crucially important for understanding and appreciating "The Sea" as an album), certain songs on the disc, such as "I'd Do It All Again," were actually written by Corinne before her husband died but not recorded until afterward-- which gives them, and the entire album itself, an even greater degree of poignancy and depth.



A few reviewers have commented that her vocal performances here sound as though she "is not trying." In my view (and personal experience with this disc), one must actually sit down and seriously listen-- carefully, attentively-- to the entire work, sometimes reading along with the lyrics (and I had to do all of these things more than once), in order to really "get" why Corinne chooses to sing exactly as she does in these songs. It is a deliberate choice on her part, and understood in context, it is extremely powerful.



The first song, "Are You Here?," is a good example. Corinne's vocals sound, alternately, spacey, numb, melancholic, and blissful, as she recalls her husband, almost as if he were still with her in this life-- because in a certain sense, for her, he *is* still with her. It's a dark, wounded, haunting song, on an album that, overall, is decidedly not a "party album."



However, the pensive mood of the disc does not at all mean that it is a "bad" piece of work (in terms of quality). On the contrary, for what Corinne seemingly intended "The Sea" to be, artistically, it is a stunning success-- in my opinion, a near-masterpiece. It really is a complete work of art, with soul, intelligence, and layers of meaning, in a way that is increasingly rare to find in contemporary popular music.



The album is also *not* a total submersion into melancholy, despite what some reviewers have stated. Catch the delicate balance of emotions captured on "Closer" or "Paris Nights/New York Mornings," in which Corinne sings with joyful vim and vigor, while still retaining an undercurrent of wistfulness and longing for the past. This is quite simply amazing work, both musically and vocally. Very few contemporary artists, in any genre of popular music, are writing and performing at Corinne's level, as shown on this disc.



Her new band, showcased here, performs (as does Corinne herself) with both musical skill and raw feeling. The emphasis here is on purity and authenticity of artistic expression, rather than scrubbed-clean, antiseptic performances which will fit in nicely with the interchangeable divas of the mainstream pop hit parade. Corinne is simply on a different poetic and aesthetic wavelength than most contemporary R&B/soul singers. She always has been on a different wavelength, but this album has made that fact more obviously clear-- and we, as listeners, are the richer for it.



I have listened to "The Sea" many, many times over the last few months. The songs resonate with me in a particularly personal way, as one who has experienced the sudden, unexpected deaths of family members and friends in my own life over the years. However, even apart from my personal "identification" of sorts with Corinne's grief, as heard expressed in these songs-- just purely on the level of art itself, "The Sea" is a formidable achievement. Again, complete albums, such as this one-- true, profound, artistic statements-- do not come along very often in this age of soundbites and surfaces.



Serious lovers of music should be grateful for what Corinne has given us here. I believe that in her own way, she has achieved, with this collection of songs, something just as powerful as Marvin Gaye did with "What's Going On," or John Lennon did with "Plastic Ono Band." To Corinne, I must say that this amateur music reviewer, fellow human being, and yes, thankful fan, salutes you for persevering through grief and pain to give us such a deep, life-affirming, and (I believe time will prove) enduring work. In the liner notes for the CD booklet, Corinne states, with hard-won understanding, that "God is a mystery and a healer." "The Sea," itself, could also be a form of healing for her and a source of enrichment for her listeners. May they be many. This album deserves wide and serious recognition. Four and one-half stars out of five."

Wonderful, warm, soulful

Quiero Cafe | South Texas | 05/03/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Just gotta drop my dos centavos here amidst this muddied sea of confused reviewers. This album is the most truly soulful thing to come out of the mindless music factory in well over a decade. You might have to look back to a decade with a 7 in it to find anything comparable. So the sounds might be considered retro - might be retro. But the important sound is the voice. This is a voice that aches and yearns. This is a voice that is feeling the notes as well as the words, not just mindlessly baroquing over a stilted blues scale, not spewing a river of bold-faced obscenity that will accompany her latest scantily clad music porno. This record deserves to be cast into gold if for no other reason than it provides a brief calm amidst the swirling sewage, a coda that casts my tired mind back to days when the radio was the bringer of emotional ecstasy, not a sludge pump of corporate product designed to turn hearts to stone. No matter what the words say, the meaning is there, writ large, between the words, floating like a resonant harmonic, an electromagnetic pulse of something old but now staggeringly new. Anyone whose heart does not respond needs to report to the nearest morgue, where vocoder voiced gargoyle demons can continue to pump product beneath their grey skin - eyes wide and vacant, ears hearing only a dull monotonous hum of faux-sensuality passed off as egotistical high."