Montreal has a new diva and her name is Marie-Christine. Discovered by Canadian superstar Corey Hart. It took Corey 5 years to find his first artist and after hearing her for the first time he signed her right on the spot for his new record label “Siena”.
The record is separated into 2 parts, Soul Red which has a more slick pop 80’s produced sound and Soul Blue leaning towards a more R & B sound, although with CD’s that only have one side and digital music that randomizes on an ipod it seems pointless, but I like when artists actually put some thought into their records and it’s a nice nod to the past which fits well to the retro sound of the project.
The introductory Girl In Shades is a new quirky take on Corey’s Sunglasses At Night, this works so much better when the original writer has a hand in it, then the sampling, interpolation, and stealing that is used in current music by other artists. The second single and first video Totally Random is pure pop delight that stick in your head after hearing it once. She does a few covers including a sultry seductive version of Prince’s I Wanna Be Your Lover, a great reggae version of Squeeze’s song Tempted featuring GoldenChyl, and Keep On Running a Stevie Wonder song not often remembered, Corey even manages to get Stevie to appear on the record, all of these tracks would make excellent singles. Most of the other tracks are written and produced by Corey including the title Walk In Beauty a haunting but powerful ballad with a positive message, my favourite Port Au Prince featuring Luck Mervil, and Silence, a song Corey originally wrote for Celine Dion.
Marie-Christine offers a few of her own penned tracks the best being the jazzy, snazzy pop groove Get Out and the slow jam Let Yourself Go. The playing length of the CD opened the doors to more tacks and music, but I would have pruned down this CD from 15 to 12 tracks leaving the beautiful ballad All I Ever Do to close out the record.
A very promising first record, I’ll be looking forward to hearing her next endeavours, I hope she evolves but doesn’t change too much, I’d hate to see her trying to do the sound du jour, she’s too sophisticated for that.