Liza Minnelli - Confessions
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CD Details
Artist: Liza MinnelliEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
CD Release Date: 2010-09-21
Music Label: Decca U.S.
Soundtracks:
- Confession
- You Fascinate Me So
- All The Way
- I Hadn't Anyone Till You
- This Heart Of Mine
- I Got Lost In His Arms
- Remind Me
- Close Your Eyes
- He's A Tramp
- I Must Have That Man
- On Such A Night As This
- Moments Like This
- If I Had You
- At Last
Music reviews of Confessions
Music Review: A Confession - This Record Is So-So
Rating: 3 Stars
Liza Minnelli's "Confessions," her first studio effort in more than a decade, is like Swiss Miss hot cocoa - warm and soothing on a cold winter's morning, but lacking excitement or nuance.
Granted, the mood and atmosphere are deliberately restrained and downbeat, with the wonderful Billy Stritch often providing Liza's sole accompaniment. This is a lo-fi, acoustic recording that breathes and is virtually noiseless, with no song standing out from the crowd. For some listeners, this would make the perfect sleep sedative.
The production techniques could have been generated in 1980 in a suburban recording studio. Many albums achieve "intimacy" but do not sound recorded on the cheap, as this one does. Ultimately, of course, Liza's presence injects the proceedings with a world-class aura.
Liza does a good job of being "Liza" here - playing into the expectations of her audience. She is one of the few living performers who should be permitted to get away with doing that. This self-awareness, however, does not always lend itself so well to an album of brooding romantic odes.
Her "You Fascinate Me So," for instance, sounds more fun-loving and cutely awkward than cozy or sincere. The same goes for "Close Your Eyes," a Tin Pan Alley chestnut which Queen Latifah sang more passionately in 2004 on her "The Dana Owens Album."
Even Irving Berlin's lovely, evergreen "I Got Lost In His Arms" from "Annie Get Your Gun" does not strike any particular nerve. These tracks simply glide in and out of each other in one mildly pleasing wash of sound.
There are a few moments where Liza's voice sounds abysmal, with her trying to push it beyond its present capabilities. The final "life is like a song" of the perennial "At Last," for example, sees her going for a high note with grating results. A handful of such moments pepper the album. One can guess that Liza is surrounded by a fair share of sycophants. No slip-ups like these could be found anywhere during her 2008 tenure at the Palace in New York, nor on its accompanying recording.
When Kennedy and Nixon famously debated the television audience declared Kennedy the clear winner, yet for the radio audience it was Nixon. It is likely that, seeing Liza perform these songs this way in person - especially in their living rooms - listeners would swoon with applause. When popping the CD in, however, they might feel like they had one too many helpings of Thanksgiving turkey.
Liza is such an important - and immortal - performer that she can get away with releasing a rather underwhelming collection like "Confessions" and still have fans and critics praise her for simply showing up and mustering some emotion. She has been endearing and enjoyable for decades, and "Confessions" works as a quiet, cool-as-cucumber affirmation of that, even if it is hard not to wish for something more scintillating and less sedate.
Side note: The album was originally intended to be a 10-track CD and a 15-track deluxe edition. At the last minute that idea was nixed, and so was the 15th track, "Breathing."
Description of Confessions
Celebrating sixty years in show business, the iconic Liza Minnelli is about to release the most intimate and revealing recording of her career, Confesssions, available everywhere on September 28th (Decca). A collection of American classics, Confessions features some of Minnelli's favorite songs of all time, arranged simply and elegantly, with accompaniment by her long-time pianist Billy Stritch. Though the album will surely stand as a landmark in her celebrated body of work, Minnelli maintains that the origins of Confessions were entirely organic, almost accidental. "It just sort of happened," she says. "I used to have these evenings at my house, usually on a weekend, and people like Tony Bennettor more surprising people like Janet Jacksonwould come by, and we would end up singing around the piano." Inspired by the intimacy of those incredible evenings, Liza decided to start recording some of her favorite songs with Stritch, and producer Bruce Roberts. Excited by how effortless the process became, she decided to keep going, giving the listener an up close and personal glimpse into her musical world. Unlike so many of the "Songbook" albums that have come out in recent years full of over-familiar selections, Minnelli dug deeper into the catalogues of great writers, balancing beloved numbers like "All the Way" and "At Last" with such hidden gems as "You Fascinate Me So" and "Moments Like This." The timeless songs were written by the accomplished likes of Jerome Kern, Cy Coleman, Irving Berlin and Sammy Cahn to name a few. What could still represent a challenge for someone who grew up in the spotlight, and has continually explored new avenues for her work as a singer, dancer and actress (not to mention philanthropist and teacher)? The answer is a return to the most basic configuration of all - a voice, a piano, and some magnificent songs - all which are the ingredients for the extraordinary Confessions. Significantly, the disc is her first non-cast album studio recording in almost fifteen years. Liza Minnelli remains one of the world's most beloved performers, and belongs to an elite group of entertainers who have won an Emmy, Grammy, Tony and Oscar Award. Confessions is the follow-up to her wildly acclaimed 2008 return to Broadway, "Liza's at the Palace" which was nominated for a Grammy, and also won the Tony Award (her fourth) for Best Special Theatrical Event. As someone who represents the whole package, Liza Minnelli is a one-a-of-kind, multi-talented, larger-than-life superstar the world over.Broadway & Vocalists CDs
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