Donny Osmond - Love Songs of the '70s
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CD Details
Artist: Donny OsmondEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2007-04-24
Music Label: Decca
Soundtracks:
- I Can See Clearly Now - Johnny Nash
- Sometimes When We Touch - Dan Hill
- Let's Stay Together - Al Green
- Laughter In The Rain - Neil Sedeka
- When I Need You - Leo Sayer
- How Long - Ace
- Mandy - Barry Manilow
- You Are So Beautiful - Joe Cocker
- Will It Go Round In Circles - Billy Preston
- How Deep Is Your Love - Bee Gees
- Alone Again Naturally - Gilbert O'Sullivan
- If - Bread
Music reviews of Love Songs of the '70s
Music Review: Barbaric Vs. Tolerable : The Osmond Strikes Again!
Rating: 2 Stars
Wow.
Shock No. 1 = Donny Osmond is still around
Shock No. 2 = Donny Osmond releases a covers album
Shock No. 3 = The album is part pompous, part run-of-the-mill
Oh wait a minute! That wasn't a shock at all! What else would one expect from America's favorite pre-pubescent grown-up? I mean, haven't this man and his sister been through enough surgery and therapy to figure out that the public have had enough of their obviously talentless routines?
Seriously though, even if you put aside Donny's dubious output as a 'musician' (HAH!), this record is a bit unsettling to sit through. I'm going to go with the adjective 'queasy' as that best describes the effect of this album.
Lets look at the tracklisting shall we? You don't want to you say? Well be a sport and suffer through this just as I did! You'll be rewarded handsomely! Not! The album opens with the lovely "I Can See Clearly Now" which was originally a Johnny Nash track. Sure you remember it. In Donny's capable hands, the track transforms itself into what I can only describe as a Clay Aiken pop single. This is not a good thing.
In fact, the ghost of Clay Aiken (of all people! For the love of God!) is present throughout this CD, which I am not sure is something many of you will be happy about. Whats worse, the song selection is as if the producers went over some cheap $2 'Love Songs of the 60s and 70s' compilation and pulled out the biggest hits from there.
There you have it - this album was made SOLELY for the purpose of SELLING and MARKETING and has nothing to do with the passion of the artist. It is SO, SO SO obvious its not even funny.
Second track "Sometimes When We Touch" which was once a Dan Hill number, is dead upon arrival. Things get a little better, I have to admit on the third song, "Let's Stay Together", originally by Al Green. Maybe I love the original so much, but I can't bring myself to berate this song. However, its on Track 5 when you'll finally roll the windows down and literally laugh out loud. Its Donnys' pathetic cover of "When I Need You" by Leo Sayer. OH. MY. GOD. This song should never be covered. Even Air Supply couldn't do it, and the botoxed Osmond sure cannot.
To be fair, the instrumentation here is rather nice in patches. Its very '2007' in nature. If you're a fan of Il Divo or Celine Dion, chances are you will love this and make this album a super duper hit.
I am especially shocked and horrifed by a couple of songs here though. "Mandy", a hit for Barry Manilow, and "How Deep Is Your Love" a Bee Gees staple, are covered here in the most insipid and irrelevant fashion. I can only shudder to imagine WHY they chose they already overplayed tracks to remake, but remake they have, and the results are less than spectacular. Donny's voice has never been his strength - and to sound like a wannabe teenybopper on a covers record such as this brings images of Sanjaya Malakar to mind.
Many of you will not agree with this review, but please understand that there is no conceivable reason for an album such as this to exist except to RIP YOU OFF. Donny Osmond has never been a singer really, and if you really want to waste money you can always buy the Paris Hilton record (which ironically is better than this one in every way. I mean that).
Disposable and instantly forgettable, this is one album you should definitely avoid. And I'm not being sarcastic or overly nasty here, just being honest. It has no redeeming features whatsoever.
Description of Love Songs of the '70s
There were some nights during his triumphant starring run as the villainous Gaston in the Broadway production of Beauty and the Beast when Donny Osmond's mind was racing. No, he wasn't trying to remember his next line; rather, he was thinking about the album he was in the process of recording. Backstage. In his dressing room. "It was totally bizarre" he laughs. "I would perform my role onstage, and then I would run back to my dressing room and fix a vocal I didn't like. Sometimes it was just a word; other times it was an entire verse or chorus.The album is called Love Songs of the 70s, and once you hear it, you'll know why. Donny gave it his all -- he could perform vocals to completed musical tracks in his dressing room whenever he liked, a ritual he followed each afternoon -- and, as it so happened, some nights as well. Describing himself as a "Type-A perfectionist," Donny admits his that work habits might have confounded his co-stars. "But when a record means as much as this one, you do whatever it takes to make it special."
True to its title, Love Songs of the 70s is a collection of some of the most memorable romantic pop and R&B ballads of a golden, multi-platinum era. Just a casual glance at some of the songs will transport listeners back to a special place in their lives: "Laughter in the Rain," "Oh, Girl," "If," "Let's Stay Together," "How Deep Is Your Love," "You Are So Beautiful," -- these are some of the priceless selections Donny has chosen for this remarkable set. "That's what's so amazing about these songs," says Donny. "They're time capsules, capable of moving you in so many powerful ways. What's more, if a song is truly a classic, as these certainly are, their importance grows through the decades because of what you, the listener, bring to them. I've always loved hearing these songs, and I especially love singing them."
Musically speaking, children of the '70s subscribe to a tribe mentality: At first glance, former Stooges fanatics may have little in common with onetime discomaniacs, but get them together and odds are they'll bond over a mutual belief that Cliff Richard's "We Don't Talk Anymore" was, for its time, one hot track. Which is why Donny Osmond did himself a favor by recording this batch of retreads--what he loses in nostalgia points for making a disc without Marie (all these years later, there's still an element that prefers a little bit of country with its little bit of rock'n'roll), he makes up for in timeless material that, not incidentally, is very well sung. It's possible to hear Dan Hill's ever-tender "Sometimes When We Touch" here without missing Hill for a second, for instance. And because Donny's nice-guy reputation precedes him by decades, he's a natural at putting his own sunshiny spin on Johnny Nash's "I Can See Clearly Now." If Love Songs disappoints even a sliver, it's because the title limits the song selection to disallow tracks that could have formed an equally enjoyable record: Goofy Songs of the 70s. Suffice it to say that Leo Sayer's "When I Need You" leaves a listener with a deep hankering to hear Donny's rendition of "You Make Me Feel Like Dancin'," too. --Tammy La Gorce More Donny Osmond
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