Opera Babes - how desperate can you get?

I bought their first album online, thinking that it'd be straight up my alley and a new addition to the classical crossover genre... I never listened to it much. Today I checked out their latest release "Renaissance" and I can't believe why I even bought the first one.

Just the name would be sufficient to make any classical music purist shake his head in disbelief. It seems like they've failed to see that young classical musicians and singers can achieve popularity within their own age groups BASED ON THEIR TALENT - and instead they find it necessary to flaunt their bodies and pose like dance pop stars. If I'd seen the cover photo without the titles I'd have thought it was Paola & Chiara's new album.

As the classical crossover genre exploded a few years ago, things like this were considered new, fresh, exciting, something that made classical music available for younger people and even teens who normally listened to mainstream chart music. The trend was started, I think, by Josh Groban, and then other singers with more classical reportoire followed - Hayley Westenra, Amici Forever, Katherine Jenkins. The concept in itself is not a bad idea and it did work - I'm an example of that - but it has to end somewhere. What we see now is perfectly able classical singers selling themselves short by desperately trying to reach a younger audience and putting on a sexy image.

Opera Babes is the perfect example of that. The beautiful Flower Duet from Lakmé in R'n'B remix? Lloyd Webber's famous Pie Jesu transformed into some scmaltzy New Age lullaby? Secret Garden's Nocturne arranged like something from a relaxation technique CD? The annoying aspect of it is not really that they're willing to go to such lengths to achieve popularity - that's merely hilarious - but the fact that they could actually do so much better. They have the voices, they can tackle arias, why don't they? New star sopranos like Anna Netrebko and Magdalena Kozena prove that you can be popular and hip and modern in classical music and still be true to the art.

ALB - Lupus Island

A while back, traditional Norwegian folk music meant old men playing the accordion and old women singing in strange dialects. Not anymore. The traditional Norwegian music scene of today consists of promising young talents who want to take folk music to a new level - which is exactly what ALB has done.

ALB is short for Andreas Ljones Band - Andreas has already had great success with the group Majorstuen, who mix traditional Norwegian folk music with classical and give new life to old tunes. In making this album he seems to have thought "why not go even further?". The music is new and fresh and a wonderful, though unlikely combination of traditional folk, rock and electronica. Andreas himself plays the fiddle and various flutes, the rest of the band (Rune Tylden, Andreas Bratlie, Lasse Weeden) handle sampling, programming, synth, bass, drums and percussions. He seems to have taken a new direction imagewise too judging by his promo photos; from the clean-cut image of Majorstuen to something that looks like Rothbart in Swan Lake - Heavily styled hair, eyes smeared with eyeliner and locked in a mysterious, intense gaze.

I wish there was a more accurate way to describe ALB's unique sound but it's hard to explain. It has to be heard to be understood.

Links to buy the album can be found on ALB's web site: http://www.andreasljones.com/musikk.html