Lundi 7 mai 2008
Review: Piece of My Soul, Garou
T'Cha Dunlevy, Gazette Music Critic
Published: Wednesday, May 07
Garou
Piece of My Soul
Columbia/Sony BMG
Rating: Two stars (out of five)
He's a man who needs no introduction on the other side of our province's linguistic divide. With his fourth album, and first English-language release, Garou attempts to break on through to the other side.
That he is a former barroom cover-band singer who went on to fame and fortune as the star of the musical Notre-Dame de Paris, and was until recently managed by Céline's hubby René Angélil, is really all you need to know.
Garou sings like the exact composite of all these things. His raspy growl has beer-fuelled emotion, along with its share of theatrics and radio-craving polish. The album is a calculated attempt at wide appeal. Songwriters of various stripes are called in (Garou pens none of his own material).
Rob Thomas gives him the overblown, album-opening blues-soul-rock stomper Stand Up (with the line "You're a bad bad girl and you just can't stop"); Céline collaborator Aldo Nova offers the acoustic title track Take a Piece of My Soul; and Enrique Iglesias and Guy Chambers team up for the swaying power-ballad First Day of My Life.
Elsewhere, there is the Peter Gabriel-esque hymn Burning, and bright-eyed rocker All the Way. Nowhere is there anything resembling idiosyncrasy, subtlety or genuine artistic expression. This is prefab pop with ample servings of melodrama. The trite lyrics are consistently cringe-worthy.
Producer Peer Astrom gives the whole a slick sheen, but he can't give it personality. And thus, like Céline, Garou oversings and overemotes, belting the heck out of precious little, and trying to make these songs sound as important as they pretend to be.
Will he succeed in conquering English Canada, and/or Europe? Who knows? As Céline has proven, anything is possible - but Garou doesn't have a vocal range to speak of; so he is left with his rasp and his everyman enthusiasm. There are no U.S. or U.K. release dates, as of yet. And there is no star system to speak of in the rest of Canada, never mind English Quebec. So Garou becomes just another guy starting from relative scratch, hoping to make it - albeit with some high-paid help. Unfortunately, that doesn't make this disc any more appealing.
Podworthy: What's the Time in NYC
© The Gazette (Montreal) 2008
Review: Piece of My Soul, Garou
T'Cha Dunlevy, Gazette Music Critic
Published: Wednesday, May 07
Garou
Piece of My Soul
Columbia/Sony BMG
Rating: Two stars (out of five)
He's a man who needs no introduction on the other side of our province's linguistic divide. With his fourth album, and first English-language release, Garou attempts to break on through to the other side.
That he is a former barroom cover-band singer who went on to fame and fortune as the star of the musical Notre-Dame de Paris, and was until recently managed by Céline's hubby René Angélil, is really all you need to know.
Garou sings like the exact composite of all these things. His raspy growl has beer-fuelled emotion, along with its share of theatrics and radio-craving polish. The album is a calculated attempt at wide appeal. Songwriters of various stripes are called in (Garou pens none of his own material).
Rob Thomas gives him the overblown, album-opening blues-soul-rock stomper Stand Up (with the line "You're a bad bad girl and you just can't stop"); Céline collaborator Aldo Nova offers the acoustic title track Take a Piece of My Soul; and Enrique Iglesias and Guy Chambers team up for the swaying power-ballad First Day of My Life.
Elsewhere, there is the Peter Gabriel-esque hymn Burning, and bright-eyed rocker All the Way. Nowhere is there anything resembling idiosyncrasy, subtlety or genuine artistic expression. This is prefab pop with ample servings of melodrama. The trite lyrics are consistently cringe-worthy.
Producer Peer Astrom gives the whole a slick sheen, but he can't give it personality. And thus, like Céline, Garou oversings and overemotes, belting the heck out of precious little, and trying to make these songs sound as important as they pretend to be.
Will he succeed in conquering English Canada, and/or Europe? Who knows? As Céline has proven, anything is possible - but Garou doesn't have a vocal range to speak of; so he is left with his rasp and his everyman enthusiasm. There are no U.S. or U.K. release dates, as of yet. And there is no star system to speak of in the rest of Canada, never mind English Quebec. So Garou becomes just another guy starting from relative scratch, hoping to make it - albeit with some high-paid help. Unfortunately, that doesn't make this disc any more appealing.
Podworthy: What's the Time in NYC
© The Gazette (Montreal) 2008