If you replaced the album cover with a Disney movie poster, asked different artists to sing the songs and gave it to me, I would've still thought this album was brilliant. It's a pop album, I can imagine the songs to come straight out of a Disney movie but you know what?
They're not. That's what I love about this album. It is what it is and there's not beating around the bush. It's a pop album and it's not trying to be ground-breaking or anything(although I'm pretty sure it it's ground-breaking..), it's a bunch of amazing pop songs.
Although I must admit, the first track,
Catch Me if You Can seems really, really out of place. You've got this really brilliant pop album ahead of you and what do you hear first? A song that could easily be in a spy movie or with a few alterations a Gossip Girl commercial. After that rather strange opening though, a familiar track comes on,
Someday Soon. This is the song that kept me on my toes about this album.
Alive got my attention and
Someday Soon kept me wanting more. The album version sounds a bit different though, do the vocals seem stronger and the instrumentals a bit more padded or is it just my imagination?
1,000 Stars is a song I would envision as the standard power ballad for Hilary Duff, Lindsay Lohan or some young triple-threat from their generation but no, Natalie Bassingthwaighte got it! Yay for her! The first verse is so-so but the moment you hear the chorus, it'll want to make you break down in tears. After the(rather short) chorus the second verse makes much more sense and then the chorus hits again and you just want to repeat that part over and over and over again, it's driving me insane. I love the contrast of the melody, the very simple, barely there verses and the epic, repetitive chorus, it's gorgeous.
This girl seems to like contrast and clashing. If you remember what I said about
Alive when it was on my year-end countdown, I said that I loved the friction of her slightly rough voice and the 'grainy' instruments and I say exactly the same thing. I think it was the right single to launch the album, you need something to get people curious about you and that was exactly what it did to me. I was curious about the song and yet it seemed familiar. haha.
Not For You sounds like something Everlife or Superchic[k] would sing for a Disney live-action movie soundtrack. I love every part of the song, these kinds of songs are usually the ones that I'll listen to a lot when I first get them, get sick of them and I'll forget about it for two months then when I'm so bored, I'll remember the song, listen to it and just smile at brilliance.
Feel The Fire is very Hilary Duff. It's not Lindsay Lohan pop/rock, it's Hilary Duff sweet slightly electro-pop. I do love the melody but it's as if this track goes right through me. I can listen to this while reading a book or doing something else and I wouldn't stop and just listen. It's a great track, there's just nothing different or exceptionally brilliant about it.
I quite like
Supernatural. The melody of the verse, with a little work remotely sounds like something The Ting Tings would do. The chorus however, puts Natalie right back in my good books. Of course it's no comparison to
1,000 Stars but it's very fun and for some strange reason it reminds me of something my dad used to listen to when I was a kid. Hmm. I do love the chorus and the middle 8, they're brilliant.
I always wonder why all these pop albums have at least one mid-tempo/ballad-y track with a very R&B beat to it. The verses of
Why Do I sound very R&B and it if weren't for the electro stuff during the chorus, I'd say it's VERY R&B-ish. I like the piano to
Turn the Lights Out, it sounds very epic like those tracks with the music videos that have the singer in a room of this really old castle, playing the piano in a black or red dress. Really, I'm serious!
This Can't Be Love reminds me a lot of
Fruit Machine, with the instrumentals and all, mixed with a Lindsay Lohan song. Nothing special but I do adore the stuff at the start and during the second verse.
Superhuman, not to be confused with
Supernatural reminds me a lot of Marie Serneholt's
I Need A House. I love the whole thing, one of the tracks that makes me want to close my eyes and just listen for a second. The melody's brilliant all throughout as well, one of the more consistent songs on the album.
Why do they always put the good tracks together at the very end?
Love Like This is brilliant! It makes
Someday Soon sound ordinary and believe me, it's far from ordinary. This track however, is in a league of it's own. It may remind me a lot of
Someday Soon but it's soooooooooo much better! haha.
In His Eyes is the most bare track in the album. No electronic machines, no heavy production, just Natalie, a guitar and one or two other stuff. It's refreshing, after all the heavily produced songs and it's a very nice ending to the album, it makes me want to listen to the whole album again and again. Now I see why
Catch Me If You Can was put in the album.
1,000 Stars is like a story unraveling in front of you. You go from strange to slow to fast to brilliant but in the end, you're right back where you started so you want to do it all over again. This is definitely an album I'll be listening to for ages!
So,
to sum up the album:
Best Track: Definitely
1,000 Stars.
Better Tracks: Someday Soon, Alive, Not For You, Supernatural, Superhuman, Love Like This, In His EyesLeast Favorite Track: Could You Be Loved didn't really go well with me.
THE RATING: 4.5/5
Non-Voting Categories(I'll choose the winners!)
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