How Many Poles Does it Take to Make a Hit Record?
Written: Dec 20 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: nice blend of pop, light jazz, and samba melodies
Cons: some spotty tunes in the middle
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| Pantagruel's Full Review: London Warsaw New York by Basia |
I consider myself to possess a wide-ranging music collection and to listen to anything I obtain at least three or four times before filing it away with all of my other CDs, cassettes, and LPs. I return to most of my albums because there is something or other that impressed me when I first heard it, but there are many others that never left much of a first impression and as such rarely get taken out of their cases or jackets after those initial three or four trips to my stereo.
Such was the case with my cassette copy of London Warsaw New York. Since I bought it for a buck in one of those Columbia House clearance sales, I chalked it up to an inexpensive purchase that didn’t pan out, doomed to forever occupy a place on my cassette rack without a second thought. It may as well have been tossed in an old shoebox and buried underneath the house.
So, an odd thing happened the other week when my wife, wading through my CDs and cassettes in search of something she could play in the car on one of our Sunday drives, came across said cassette. I imagine she must have wiped a generous amount of dust off of the case before seeing a blue-eyed brunette staring back at her. Nevertheless, she popped the cassette into the tape player during our drive, and as it played I began recalling the reasons why I had dismissed the album the first time around: trite lyrics, flat singing, and drum machines. This was one of those stereotypical late 80’s Madonna-lite excursions by a Euro-pop model trying to hit it big internationally.
There was only one problem with that line of thought. If this album is so easy to reject, then why can’t I get its damn melodies out of my head?
Basia Trzetrzelewska (which is why she is known simply as “Basia”) is a Polish born singer who incorporates jazz and samba elements into her repertoire. Along with her collaborator, Danny White, she wrote all of the songs on London Warsaw New York except for one cover version, as well as produced and arranged the album. As the partnership’s musician, White plays keyboards and is responsible for the drum programming. But it is his way with a catchy hook that first made me give pause and reassess my opinion.
Certainly in sections, the album does sound like a carbon copy of Madonna’s True Blue. The intro to “Cruising for Bruising” recalls “Papa Don’t Preach”; “Best Friends” borrows the rhythm guitar from “Open Your Heart”; “Take Him Back Rachel” sounds similar to “La Isla Bonita”. You get the picture. However, I suppose if you are attempting to emulate a sound, there are worse ways to go about it than pinching an idea or two.
Where I find a fundamental fault with London Warsaw New York is when Basia abandons her deep voice for a lighter tone that may better suit the music, but also causes her to sound flat and nondescript. I don’t mean to infer that her singing is flat, but rather when she sings a word like “hea-ven”, it doesn’t come out as a fully rounded word.
Although Basia is not a particularly strong songwriter, her lyrics have a naďve charm about them, especially when she confesses knowing “very simple words of your language” and how she is “a stranger in this land/Even friends failed to make me feel at home”. However, she forces enough lines like “Without you life wouldn’t be the same/Please never go away/And if you do then don’t forget to take me with you” to make me wonder if she writes in Polish then translates it into English.
None of the songs stray from the theme of love, whether it is about breaking up and remaining friends, sticking it out and bearing the storm, or finding that elusive soul mate. This does not offer too much room for variety and, on an adult-contemporary album, that spells the making for possible disaster.
For example, one absolutely dreadful number is the song “Brave New Hope.” It is one of those I’ve-been-set-free pieces that plays like it should be the exit music for a really bad romantic movie. The song trudges along and is really too slow for Basia, given her singing method. Fortunately, the highlights outweigh the album’s doldrums.
In addition to being a Top 30 hit, “Cruising for Bruising” finds Basia delivering her most overt Madonna imitation. Her voice is husky like Madonna, a perfect choice since the topic deals with a complex break-up. It is the most mature and “adult” number on the album.
On the lone cover song, a remake of the Aretha Franklin hit “Until You Come Back to Me”, Basia turns in a surprisingly credible version. She is helped in no small part by White’s dance mix backing beat. Though she isn’t able to match Lady Soul’s energy, Basia’s pleading vocals come across as sincere and sound like a young woman’s response to the original version as sung by its then 17 year-old composer, Stevie Wonder. And she adds a degree of sexuality during the fade-out when she softly coos, “open up, baby”.
On numbers like “Copernicus”, the chorus and melody are so infectious that one can overlook the name-dropping of Chopin and the title character and such clumsy lines as “This is a song about the place I come from/It’s not on the moon at all.” Basia’s exuberance is apparent when she sings the chorus:
Our love will take this globe by storm
If it’s London, Warsaw, or New York
and then repeats it in Polish. She seems at her most impassioned when singing in her native tongue and it’s a pity that she only chose two numbers in which to display this side of her.
A style that Basia does demonstrate on several tracks is her scat singing. It’s not quite in the same league as, say, Ella Fitzgerald, but it blends in well with the jazzier components of White’s arrangements. It also acts as an effectual cover-up on the several numbers where her voice flattens some of the words she sings.
For his part, White keeps the sound relatively fresh by adding horn arrangements on songs like “Best Friends” and “Not an Angel” (does Gabriel play big-band jazz?) or providing an accordion for “Ordinary People” to give the song an old-world feel. But it is the samba beat and sing-along chorus found on songs like “Baby You’re Mine” that give off the most sparks.
I have to thank my wife for reintroducing this album to me and allowing me to partake in its pleasures despite its numerous flaws. Call me an old softie (or just soft in the head) but overall I enjoyed London Warsaw New York enough to stamp its passport, approve its visa, and allow it an extended stay in my tape deck.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
Pantagruel
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Location: Minneapolis, California, Philippines
Reviews written: 225
Trusted by: 84 members
About Me:
Got a USB turntable from Santa. Slowly bringing my music collection into the 21st century.
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