Close, But No Cigar (So Close - Dina Carroll)

Member Name: stoffy

Product:	So Close - Dina Carroll
Date:	13/12/03 (798 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: some great forgotten singles

Disadvantages: most of it has dated quite badly

Successful British female soloists are a little bit thin on the ground with only Dido and Gabrielle guaranteed huge hits with every one of their releases. However, rewind to 10 years ago and it was Dina Carroll who was riding on the crest of a wave with her million-selling 'So Close' album. Suffolk-born Dina had previously come to prominence with a dance cover of Carole King's 'It's Too Late' with dance outfit Quartz before she launched with a debut filled with radio-friendly blend of RnB pop.

The album opener 'Special Kind Of Love' epitomised Dina's bright and breezy style. Whilst time has admittedly not been kind to the song's wine-bar production, it does show off her silky, soulful voice and is still a memorable track. Similarly, 'Hold On' suffers from the perils of age (the eradication of the jazz sax in music over the past decade is not something to be mourned). Once again though, it proved how accomplished a vocalist she was, even on one of 'So Close's weaker tracks.

One of the stronger ballads, 'This Time' is music to have a candlelight dinner to. Whilst the genre is not everyone's cup of lapsang-suchong, it isn't bad as far as mushy ballads go. Similarly, the album's title track is beautifully sung and one of the better love songs of that period and style. However, the track sandwiched in between the two on the album, the pop-lite, 'Falling', is an aged also-ran that it worth skipping

Much more interesting is her first solo hit, 'Ain't No Man'. A positive record with slick production, it is something of a forgotten club classic, probably due to the fact that the changing goalposts in music means that it is much too tame to be classified as dance music nowadays. Likewise, the cheeky 'Express' is a gem that seems to have been forgotten due to the public's association with Dina and her ballads. The funkier single ver
sion is sadly absent, although the version on offer here is still a superior cut above the rest.

'Heaven Sent' throws us back into slow-dance territory. Borrowing somewhat from the style of Carole King's 'You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman', a gospel choir adds a bit of flavour to the song and it stands up as a nice contrast to some of the faster songs. 'You'll Never Know' lacks a bit of sparkle to make it stand out amongst the other tracks but is still a high quality piece of polished pop.

However, the album's defining track is also her most famous piece. 'Don't Be A Stranger' is somewhat unusual in that it was the sixth song to be released off the album (a mammoth 18 months after 'Ain't No Man'!) and became her biggest hit by far. Selling more than the five previous releases put together, it helped accelerate her already blooming career and turned her into a household name. However, once again, it is a slightly different version that appears on the album from what most people will be familiar with on the radio. Less epic and with a barer production, it is still a fine song that deserved the success it achieved.

'Why Did I Let You Go' is similar to 'Ain't No Man' in its dancefloor diva-isms and it possibly the strongest song that never got released. The album pops to a close with the pleasant if unextraordinary conclusion with 'If I Knew You Then', another slowie.

It's listening to albums like 'So Close' that you realise how quickly some things can date. Like M People, it's blended style of slick pop, dance and soul sounds at odds with what's happened in music over the past decade or so and now sounds very tired. However, stripping the production aside, there are at least half a dozen excellent songs in here, and it's easy to see why it sold so many copies at the time of its release.

However, second
-album syndrome hit Carroll harder than most. After a hiatus of 3 years following the release of the non-album track 'The Perfect Year', Dina returned with her underwhelming 'Only Human' album. Yielding just one big hit in 'Escaping', it was considered a massive flop and effectively cut her career dead in its tracks. Whilst she's popped up on a few dance records since then and released a greatest hits package, her early promise has most definitely not been fulfilled. However, 'So Close' is a decent, albeit dated, legacy of a great global career that may have been...

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