Kenny Chesney - Be As You Are
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CD Details
Artist: Kenny ChesneyEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2005-01-25
Music Label: Bna Entertainment
Soundtracks:
- Old Blue Chair
- Be As You Are
- Guitars And Tiki Bars
- Island Boy
- Somewhere In The Sun
- Boston
- Something Sexy About The Rain
- French Kissing Life
- Key Lime Pie
- Sherry's Living In Paradise
- Magic
- Soul Of A Sailor
- Old Blue Chair (Ocean Mix)
Music reviews of Be As You Are
Music Review: NAVY BLUE
Rating: 3 Stars
Seemingly fast on the tracks of WHEN THE SUN GOES DOWN, BE AS YOU ARE has caught many fans flat footed as "Anything But Mine" from Chesney's 2004 release was still climbing the country music charts. While opening at the top of the country charts, critical reception has been a little lukewarm. Many times the record buying public has better judgment than the critics: but this time the critics have a point.
The two drawbacks to BE AS YOU ARE become apparent by the sixth cut. There is a sameness to the themes of each cut throughout the CD. All the songs revolve around the subject matter of escaping to the Caribbean islands and sea and finding one's true self. After Chesney's island themed Christmas CD and the sea flavored WHEN THE SUN GOES DOWN, this is getting to be a bit much for a country singer. Yes, Jimmy Buffett has made an entire career of beach bum worship; but Buffett has the good sense to cast a wider net and vary his songs. Chesney, we read, comes by his affection for the sea honestly as he spent good stretches of his youth along the shoreline. But we get the message of the virtues of a stress-free life pretty quickly even in landlocked locals. It gets as monotonous as your relatives calling from Florida or California during the dead of winter and boastfully announcing that the sky is sunny and blue with a temperature of 72 while your skies have been gray for weeks and the current blizzard is driving the thermometer toward zero. That's the reason why a little spot in our hearts lights up when summer comes around and Florida is bracing for hurricanes and wild fires race up and down the hills in California. Our angels tell us we should be moved to compassion. Our devils, however, love the taste of sweet revenge in the suffering of our bragging brothers and sisters. Sure, Kenny, "be as you are" when the winds are coming at you at a hundred miles an hour.
There is also something about songs of idyllic island life that renders the tone all the same. Professional musicians can point out how many of the songs differ in pace and keys; but they still end up sounding all the same after a while.
So as an album, BE AS YOU ARE doesn't work that well. I have found, however, that if you listen to just a couple of cuts at a time the individual quality of the songs come through well. It is then that you recognize that individually all of the songs are quite good. Of all the songs here, I am taken with "Old Blue Chair", "Be As You Are", "Guitars And Tiki Bars", and "Something Sexy About The Rain". These aside, "Key Lime Pie" is a kind of favorite as a light tune (it doesn't hurt that there is a possibility of a mildly "dirty" meaning here). If you buy this album and find you don't like it as much as you thought you would, I advise you to take my approach and listen to it in "chunks".
For someone who is such a big fan of Chesney's, I am uneasy recommending this album to newcomers. Just about any one of Chesney's earlier albums would be a better place to start. If you are a fan you probably have BE AS YOU ARE already. If you are just an occasional fan (you like a song of Kenny's here and there), I'd wait until the next "greatest hits" collection. Whatever is valuable here will find its way to that collection.
Description of Be As You Are
All products are BRAND NEW and factory sealed. Fast shipping and 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed.Kenny Chesney may work the Jimmy Buffett mojo a little too hard on his CMA Award-winning album, When the Sun Goes Down. But he comes by it naturally, having vacationed at Myrtle Beach as a child and today owning a home in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Now comes his all-out island salute, Be As You Are (Songs from an Old Blue Chair), which surprises only in its concentration on the restorative vibe of beachfront life rather than the bikinis and rum-soaked nights. Intimate and subdued, the album gets mandatorily frolicsome on "Guitars and Tiki Bars." But mostly it's a reflective look at the people, places, and passion that make up his south-of-the-equator equation. There are lovely moments here--the cocktail swirl of "Magic," the quiet eroticism of "Something Sexy in the Rain," and the faraway ache of "Somewhere in the Sun." Trouble is, Chesney, who wrote or cowrote all 13 tracks, ended up with enough material for only half a record, and then repeated many of his ideas (particularly the singling out of the émigrés who came to the islands to become whole again) to fill out the album. Add that shortcoming to the mellow sameness that prevails, and Be As You Are becomes less an album for that old blue chair than one for the hammock. --Alanna Nash
Recommended New Traditionalist Country Albums
 No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problems |  When the Sun Goes Down |  Toby Keith, Greatest Hits, Vol. 1 |
 Alan Jackson, A Lot About Living (And a Little 'Bout Love) |  Alan Jackson, The Greatest Hits Collection |  Toby Keith, How Do You Like Me Now?! |
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