Well, she's here. I've had a quick first listen and I like it far more than I expected. The arrangements are spot-on, and the song choices are a perfect time capsule of Shirley's feelings towards her career, her fans, her loves and her life. The mix of contemporary and classic makes it feel very much like a musical of the Shirley of today flashing back over her career. As a grand finale, it ticks all the boxes.
The
Overture leading into
Who Wants To Live Forever is perfect. Dramatic. Enticing. Bondian. And I enjoy this rendition of WWTLF more than her 1995 recording (which I'm quite horrified to realise is now quarter of a century ago). In fact - at risk of heresy - it's not a song I've cared for very much sung by anyone. But in this context it's clicked with me.
There's plenty there to evoke vintage Shirley. My favourite on this level is
Almost Like Being On Love:
The jazzy arrangement captures the tone of some of her late Fifties and Sixties showstoppers, and it also benefits from showcasing Shirley's upper range so she sounds more like the Shirley of old. It's perhaps the best track on the album vocally. She's still got it.
You Ain't Heard Nothing Yet hits similar notes.
There's also
Look But Don't Touch, which sounds great but is the album's one big fail for me due to the terribly awkward tonal mismatch of
Kiss Me Honey Honey Kiss Me (Kiss Me)'s playful confident attitude paired with MeToo sensibilities. While the sound's right, I just don't consider the condescending message of implicit toxic masculinity a good fit for Shirley. No doubt it's well-intentioned, but then so was that Gillette commercial. Incidentally, the song is written by three men.
In terms of the ballads, I'd already heard
I Owe It All To You and
I Was Here and liked both. Consequently neither had the impact they would have done were I hearing them for the first time. Looking at the track list, I'd expected Charlie Chaplin's
Smile to be the one that would get me the most tearful. But her take on
I Made It Through The Rain was the one that got me with its intimacy. A little like
MacArthur Park on her previous album, it brought out an almost painful new beauty in a song I already knew well:
I had wondered/hoped/feared that
Music might be a cover of the Madonna classic. Turns out it's not. But as I listened it sounded familiar, and after a bit of looking online I listened to the John Miles original which is definitely already embedded in my brain from hearing it in childhood. She puts a lovely spin on it, and as it builds from quietly reflective to more soaring dramatic heights it brings the album - and perhaps her studio career - to an appropriately unforgettable close.
