A different kind of Nightwatch

There is a spate of adult contemporary albums in the market these days. This is a worldwide phenomenon and I see these albums together with the pop ballads the Pinoys classify as "acoustic" recordings as the music industry’s backlash against the hugely popular R&B and hip hop tunes. Hip hop and R&B keep getting more and more complicated by the day. These types of music have now become the producer’s favorite medium because it is where they can do anything. They sample, overdub, harmonize, rap, sing, etc., etc. Adult contemporary music however is the milieu of the singer, working closely with composers and arrangers. The result is almost always beautiful.

One example is Nightwatch by Silje Nergaard. She comes from Norway and I remember her from the albums Port of Call and At First Light, released a few years ago. Both CDs and Silje, of course, were satisfying discoveries. Hey, those were proofs that world class music from Scandinavia is not limited to ABBA, Ace of Base or recent Manila visitor D’Sound. They do have somebody like Silje, whose singing blends grit and sweetness and who writes songs for romantic interludes.

Silje is actually a jazz artist but the music in Nightwatch is really popular jazz I would much rather classify under adult contemporary. Besides the flexibility of her style, the elegant arrangements and sexy lyrics of the songs deserve wider exposure and being under jazz sort of narrows her market. There are moments in the album when she seems to be preparing to scat, which I am sure she can do very well, but she reins this in and moves gracefully forward with the melody. She may do great with jazz but let us put Silje under adult contemporary for the time being. Maybe Nightwatch can be somewhere between those new albums by Streisand and Sting. From there I am sure she will be able to captivate more followers.

If I remember right Silje sings some standards in At First Light. Given the present trend towards beautiful oldies, having a few of them in Nightwatch would have been nice. But the new songs grow on you and the message of each is certainly timeless. How Am I Supposed to See the Stars, Once I Held a Moon, Dance Me Love, You Send Me Flowers, I Don’t Want to See You Cry, In a Sentence, Take a Long, Long Walk, Be Gone, Borrowing Moons, Unbreakable Heart and On and On. In fact, I found myself already reacting positively on only my second hearing. By my third or fourth I will probably be humming the songs by heart.

Compilations

The album with the attractive red package is titled Unbreakable after the Westlife hit tune and is described as a "collection of undeniable love songs." Well, it might also as well be a greatest hits compilation with big names from the charts pitching in, from Justin Timberlake with his made-for-Britney song Cry Me a River to The Calling with an acoustic rendition of Wherever You Will Go.

Britney Spears is also in it with I’m Not A Girl, Not Yet a Woman plus you will also find the much-missed The Corrs with All the Love in the World, Gareth Gates with his take on the classic Unchained Melody, Mandy Moore and I Wanna Be with You, the title track Unbreakable and others. There are 17 cuts and 14 of which are featured in the free VCD that comes with every copy.

More romantic, more edgy and also more varied are the contents of Bliss, another compilation of foreign hits released during this year’s Valentine season. This one goes from early John Mayer, Back to You to old favorites like Promises by Basia and Burn by Tina Arena to recent discoveries like I Miss You by Darren Hayes.

This is also your chance to get your copy of single favorites from one-hit albums, which you most likely refused to buy. An album with only one hit song is an expensive purchase, but when they come in a collection like Bliss, the P425 price tag is really worth it. So treat yourselves to Out of Reach by Gabrielle, ’Til They Take My Heart Away by Clair Marlo, Need to be Next to You by Leigh Nash and the title cut by Alice Peacock.