13/31: KATE RYAN - DIFFERENT
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I'm in Vinyl Exchange last Tuesday and having grabbed the soundtrack albums of The Dreamers and Everyone Says I Love you and with limited time to get the cinema I realise I haven't picked up the obligatory bargain album by a female vocalist. To keep up the French theme I'd noticed in the other two cds I grab Kate Ryan's album from the racks -- some of the albums are in that language even if her name isn't terribly gaelic. But she's written a couple of the tracks herself, and although I don't notice a mention of any instruments (so not folk then) there is always the possibility of something faux-Charlton. £3.

Sadly it looks like an attractive blonde lady turned my head. The album is dance music. And generic dance music at that. The kind of dance music you expect dance music to sound like without actually being very good. It's clear she has a pretty good voice and could have gone far if her producers hadn't been idolising the Vengaboys in the creation of the album. Every track sounds the same, using samples and drum beats which the Pet Shops Boys abandoned in the mid-nineties. Track Four in particular sounds like a Eurovision entry and not in Dana International ironic sense. In other places it's like someone doing a cover version of a Girl Aloud track over and over and over again. It's also particular monotonous to hear some tracks in French and English. Or at least I think that's what is happening ....

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