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Sheena Easton
Nov. 21st, 2004 02:52 pmI have a confession to make: I like Sheena Easton.
I'm not altogether certain why this bothers me. One reason, I suspect, is that somewhere in the back of my mind I've got her tabbed as a product of the disco era, for which I have no truck whatever. (Aside: I'd really like to read a good history of the last few decades of popular music. I've read Sound of the City, but that only goes up to about 1970, and the proliferation of subgenres since then bewilders me. I'm not clear, for instance, on the relationship, if any, between funk - some of which I like - and disco.) That tabbing may be wrong - none of her music that I'm aware of strikes me as disco-ish - but it's lurking back there anyway.
A second reason may have to do with a conversation I had with a friend back in my grad school days. Her "Morning Train" was getting a lot of airplay, and he professed puzzlement as to why she had bothered to write it. There's something to that; it's a pretty banal song, sung by a stay-at-home (girlfriend? wife?) about her SO's work schedule (He works all day / To earn his pay / So we can play all night). On the other hand, there've been a fair number of hits on the same theme from the worker's perspective - "Thank the Lord for the Night-Time", "Five O'Clock World" - and this is simply a different spin on it. I can see an argument for this take being less interesting than the other, but I don't think it's a strong one.
Her song "Modern Girl", which depicts a considerably more independent woman (and, on my album, comes right after "Morning Train") might be intended as a response to critics of the earlier song.
In any case, I like her. She has a lovely voice; I might question whether she ever took on material that deserved that voice, but it is certainly beautiful. It's strong - she can hit and hold high notes almost as well as Mariah Carey - and has more versatility than Mariah does. My favorites among her songs are "When He Shines" and "You Could Have Been With Me", at least partly for the variability with which she sings the repeated lines - now high and soaring, now soft and damping - but she shows her range in "Telefone" (frantic), "So Far So Good" (joyous), "I Wouldn't Beg For Water" (torn and passionate), all of which are very good too. "Strut" is interesting, too, in a completely different way, although it's close to the edge of what I can enjoy. ("Sugar Walls" is on the other side of that edge.)
I'm not altogether certain why this bothers me. One reason, I suspect, is that somewhere in the back of my mind I've got her tabbed as a product of the disco era, for which I have no truck whatever. (Aside: I'd really like to read a good history of the last few decades of popular music. I've read Sound of the City, but that only goes up to about 1970, and the proliferation of subgenres since then bewilders me. I'm not clear, for instance, on the relationship, if any, between funk - some of which I like - and disco.) That tabbing may be wrong - none of her music that I'm aware of strikes me as disco-ish - but it's lurking back there anyway.
A second reason may have to do with a conversation I had with a friend back in my grad school days. Her "Morning Train" was getting a lot of airplay, and he professed puzzlement as to why she had bothered to write it. There's something to that; it's a pretty banal song, sung by a stay-at-home (girlfriend? wife?) about her SO's work schedule (He works all day / To earn his pay / So we can play all night). On the other hand, there've been a fair number of hits on the same theme from the worker's perspective - "Thank the Lord for the Night-Time", "Five O'Clock World" - and this is simply a different spin on it. I can see an argument for this take being less interesting than the other, but I don't think it's a strong one.
Her song "Modern Girl", which depicts a considerably more independent woman (and, on my album, comes right after "Morning Train") might be intended as a response to critics of the earlier song.
In any case, I like her. She has a lovely voice; I might question whether she ever took on material that deserved that voice, but it is certainly beautiful. It's strong - she can hit and hold high notes almost as well as Mariah Carey - and has more versatility than Mariah does. My favorites among her songs are "When He Shines" and "You Could Have Been With Me", at least partly for the variability with which she sings the repeated lines - now high and soaring, now soft and damping - but she shows her range in "Telefone" (frantic), "So Far So Good" (joyous), "I Wouldn't Beg For Water" (torn and passionate), all of which are very good too. "Strut" is interesting, too, in a completely different way, although it's close to the edge of what I can enjoy. ("Sugar Walls" is on the other side of that edge.)
