"Once more with feeling" (Joan Armatrading - Joan Armatrading)

Member Name: cswann

Product:	Joan Armatrading - Joan Armatrading
Date:	01/09/00 (56 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent songs, sung with feeling

Disadvantages: None

Yes, she does sound like Tracey Chapman, but it's more a case of Tracey Chapman sounds like Joan Armatrading, as she came along over 10 years after this album was released.

This is Armatrading's third album, and her best - it's also the one that brought her mainstream attention. It's a perfect collection of intense, emotional songs, presented in a quiet, restrained kind of way.

Opening track "Down to zero" is a very touching song about rejection, and insecurity.
"Love and Affection" is one of the most beautiful songs I know. A yearning-for-love song ("with a friend I can smile, but with a lover a can really laugh, really laugh") sung by a shy person, coming out of herself. It must have been played on a thousand bedsit stereos. And that saxophone solo just finishes me off? every time.
"Somebody who loves you" is another tender song, again with the lyrics referring to overcoming shyness. With "Tall in the saddle", however, the theme is much more assertive - telling her man where to get off.
Some of the songs have a slightly jazzy feel: "Join the boys" and "Like fire", so although it is a lovely, romantic album in many ways, it's also quite varied.

I'll never tire of this CD.

Summary: