I’ve just watched a little bit of Sarah Brightman Live at Las Vegas on PBS and I found it loud, bombastic, and trite. Now, maybe it’s just me, because I actually expected to like it. A blend of international, broadway, classical and pop sounds interesting, but the excess was just embarassing.
The music tended to thump a lot with way too much going on at any one time, obfusticating the melody and her voice, which in the past has seemed quite beautiful to me – but not here!
The lyrics, my goodness, what I could make out seemed like bad Leonard Nimoy poetry – without going on forever and ever-- repeated over and over again.
Am I missing something? Really, I’ve enjoyed her voice in the past, I tend to like fusion sounds that blend a lot of traditions, but I thought this was just a mess
It doesn’t help that this is a drive and the person shilling for my local station can’t stop going on and on about how great it was, and I’m really having trouble seeing It.
I’m sorry but I find Sarah Brightman an annoying little twat, the vocal equivalent of Helena Bonham-Carter. Okay, she might have met her match in Andrew Lloyd-Webber, I har some of you sneering, but at least he had some talent. Jesus Christ Superstar, especially after Barry Levinson had worked on it, has many memorable moments. (And, no, not just the closing credits.) Don’t Cry for Me Argentina likewise is a ballsey kind of song, but not when sung by SB. Julie Covington - yeah, brill. If Brightman represents “crossover”, then it’s certainly the worst of both worlds you’re getting. Can’t do opera like La Stupenda, can’t do ballads like Whitney Houston. (Not as horny either.)
Brightman is a B-level singer; her voice is great by the standards of your local Kinsman production of “Camelot,” but not at the level of the true greats. But she’s famous because of a guy named Webber, and I don’t mean Chris.
Lacking the talent or the artistic originality to parlay her fame into anything good, she’s now relegated to John Tesh Hell, doing smarmy shit for audiences who think anything that’s not country is really highbrow stuff.
So, judging by the level of supporters chiming in to tell me I’ve somehow misjudged her, I’ll take it that my impression was fairly correct: It is schocky, trite and overproduced.
In short, I really haven’t been missing anything by ignoring her work.
Actually, her break came in the 70’s, during the disco era, when Sarah Brightman & Hot Gossip scored a hit with “I lost my heart to a starship trooper”. IMO, it’s just losing the disco beat that has changed.
Admittedly Sarah Brightman is much better as a studio performer than a live act. Live at Las Vegas was a production disaster, both in terms of audio and visual. She does fine on the classical and/or operatic numbers but she just insists on hitting the pop pipe and her voice isn’t suited for that. So long as she stays with the dreamy, etheral songs (somewhere between Enya and Stevie Nicks) she does well, otherwise it turns into Hot Gossip.
Now at the risk of getting a fabulous beat down I’ve never understood the appeal of Kate Bush.
I’ve always liked her voice, but I’ve only had a couple of her CDs and heard her in Phantom, I’m not really into live music performances for the sake of just watching music, I’ve been disappointed with most large concerts I went to no matter who it was. Most of those kind of performances just seem to centre on how many dancers or pyrotechnics they can cram on the stage all at once, and more often than not the acoustics are awful.
I agree. Sarah Brightman is hardly a “B-level singer” and the fact that she’s not remotely an operatic superstar doesn’t detract from her talent, IMO. I saw her in “Phantom” and her voice was impressive. Mind you, she’s not and has never been Sills, Callas, Bartolli, Fleming or Noblenko, but does she need to be? Christ, overproduced numbers are hardly novel in this day and age. I think her strength is the ethereal stuff and, let’s face it, she’s getting up there in age and there’s little room at top for aging female singers. If you’re going to attack SB, be prepared to defend about 1,000 popular singers of past and present. I might add that I enjoy some of Andrew Lloyd Weber’s creations, as do millions worldwide, even if it is hip to attack him.
I remember listening to her album “Aqua” (yes, I actually had the CD; long story that involves late nights and illicit substances), and was quite amazed and baffled by it: an artsy, fruity concept album about … water. Say what you will, but not many MOR artists would’ve made a record like that.
As for the music, whoever drew the comparison to John Tesh was spot-on. Over-produced, over-arranged schlock-pop that seems to have been made to be cut into 30-second strips and run behind commercials. Good for her, I say; it keeps her music off the radio.
Brightman made her West End debut in I and Albert at age 14. She was a member of Hot Gossip, and later had a role in CATS, where she first came to ALW’s attention.
