The first time I heard Seal's single Crazy I was sold. From his self titled debut album from 1990, it was a piece of super slick, modern soul with touches of anthemic power rock and psychedelia. Of course it couldn't be anything but good - it was produced by Trevor Horn. The man has the magic touch in the studio, and when you have someone as exotic looking (tall dark and handsome) and sounding (a croon as smooth as butta, baby) as Seal to front the song you know it's going to be special. I will admit that after a couple of albums that specialness wore off, because musically they never really went anywhere different. The single for Crazy has a bunch of good remixes on it, including one by William Orbit. My fave from it is the one titled Krazy. The remix comes courtesy of Tim Simenon AKA Bomb The Bass. He takes the smoothness of the original and scruffs it up, with tougher beats, a harder edge and a lot less gloss. I love the original's studio shine, but I also really like this version's scruffiness. I think it would have been nice to hear a few more tunes with this roughness to them on his records - I probably would have bought a few more of them!
5 comments:
hello from mexico city...
really. I quite admire you blog.
The last 12" you have posted have been mind-blowing.
Thank you very much.
trevor Horn, William orbit and tim simenon - you just KNOW how good this is! These have been fantastic 12" tracks - please keep posting...
Yes, I agree. I love that whole CD though. Esp Killer. I saw him live once and he posed like a model the whole time he sang!
For a less slick recent version of Seal, try his excellent acoustic version of "Love's Divine" - it is a 5 star job.
i would argue that musically the third/fourth albums DID go somewhere different - right into suckville. he basically experienced massive success with "a kiss from a rose", and decided he should start making entire albums full of that kind of song. and while i thought "rose" was very pretty in the context of the seal II album, it gets really fucking old when that's all you're hearing. the days of seal having any kind of relevant edge are sadly over... but the "crazy" remixes are indeed all very good.
Just wanted to say that I have been playing this a bit since the post. It's a GREAT record - "The Beginning" is epic. It's like he went from nothing to fully formed superstar in one track. It also ages well - esp Wild and Violet.
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