A new trend

I've long been fascinated with the growing trend of classical crossover artists - opera singers/operatic artists marketed as pop stars, all of them recording more or less the same songs. However the concept is beginning to grow old and I've started to notice another trend in the classical crossover field - choir boys (and in some cases girls) marketed as little angels, with a reportoire ranging from hymns to enya-like renditions of pop ballads. The result is squeaky clean, often very predictable, recorded with the reverb on 100% and dripping with candy floss sweetness.

My first encounter with this genre was through Aled Jones, because he recorded a lot of tracks in collaboration with a group of choir boys called Libera. I got their best of collection out of curiosity and I was fascinated by the genre itself. Because of the clearly exaggerated reverb effect, the songs seem like some kind of spiritual background sound for a church scene in a TV series. The focus is not so much on the voices in itself, as the spiritual meaning behind the sound as a whole - it's evidently supposed to sound like some distant, heavenly angel choir.

The "new age choir boy" genre also includes the trio that simply call themselves "The Choir Boys". The only remarkable difference between them and Libera is that they are fewer - the sound is pretty much the same. However it seems like imagewise, these young men are more marketed like pop teenagers instead of like angels.

And then we have Angelis - 3 boys and 3 girls, also giving the impression of being sqeaky clean pre-teen pop idols. The fascinating part is that they sound like the younger siblings of Amici Forever - it's just like the people who made a pre-teen copy of S Club 7 decided to make a pre-teen copy of Amici too.

Their sound and image seems like a desperate attempt to squeeze this genre even further - I am curious to see how far it will go before this trend too starts to fade due to lack of originality. There are only so many versions of Lloyd Webber's Pie Jesu one can take.

Josh Groban: Awake

Finally! After three years I can sit down and write a (hopefully) objective review of Josh Groban's third studio album. It's been an amazing ride to follow this man's career since his first release and so much has changed since then, personally and musically.

When his debut album came out he was marketed as the classical crossover geek; he has later revealed that the producers wanted him to do just classical and operatic songs, much like Bocelli. The sophomore album Closer that came out in 2003 showed us a little more of Josh's growing independence as an artist. This time around, with Awake, his songwriting skills, musicianship, and growth as a singer unfolds like a flower before our eyes, or should I say ears.

In the past I've let out my frustrations and concern about Josh changing his style too much and leaving the musical genre that made me fall in love with his music in the first place. I've realised though that in my mind I've always looked upon him as a classical singer - maybe I shouldn't have. As I listened to this album for the very first time I tried to erase all previous ideas I had of him and instead just let the music speak to me, and that made it so much easier for me to write this review(I still can't figure out what genre to put him into though, then again, maybe he doesn't need one. ).

There is no doubt that even though the musical sound has changed, Josh still has his famous voice intact, and he's not afraid of using it. He shows it off on powerful tracks like L'ultima Notte, Un Dia Llegara and Un Giorno Per Noi, the latter actually a song from Romeo and Juliet. Had the whole album consisted of songs like these, the overall result would have been a little too much, but there are also quiet, simple gems like February Song, which Josh himself wrote, and Awake, the title track which is actually only available on the limited edition.

In addition to that, he also includes world music influences, jazz AND electronica. Ladysmith Black Mambazo, the choir that accompanied Paul Simon on his Graceland album from 1986, feature on two tracks, and Herbie Hancock joins Josh on Machine, an energetic explosion of a song.

It's overall a great album, although at first it seems like there's too many musical genres gathered in one place. Personally I don't mind, and since I've been a Grobanite for almost 5 years now I can see why he'd want to include a "what the hell was that?" song like Machine. He mentions "stepping out of his comfort zone" and maybe it was about time.