dtobias's Full Review: The Color of Silence by Tiffany (Pop)
If you ask anybody what they think of Tiffany's new album, their likely reaction is "Tiffany has a new album? I thought she vanished ten years ago!" And they might add some smart-aleck comments about how silly any record company must be to actually put out something new from her. But think again; she does have a new album out, and it's worthy of a look and a listen, even if you hated her old stuff.
Back in the late '80s Tiffany had some fan following among teenagers for her pop songs such as her cover of the Tommy James and the Shondells tune "I Think We're Alone Now". This following mostly dissipated when the teens went on to the next big craze, which in her case happened to be the New Kids On The Block, which was ironic given that this group owes some of the credit for their success to Tiffany taking them on as her opening act in her 1988 concert tour. Then, a couple of years later, the kids dumped NKOTB to go on to whatever craze came next, and so on, and so on... up through the current infatuations with NSync, the Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, etc., which are likely to prove just as fleeting unless one or more of these acts manages to gain a long-term following by virtue of talent and good music, not just momentary infatuation. The Beatles survived an early phase as "teen craze" to become a long-lasting and groundbreaking group, but the vast majority of those artists won't get such success, and probably don't deserve it either.
The vast majority of the music-listening public was convinced that Tiffany was one of those momentarily-popular singers who didn't deserve more than her 15 minutes of fame. And they had good arguments to justify their position. Tiffany didn't write any of her own songs, and her image and persona was totally the creation of a domineering manager/producer, leaving absolutely no room for artistry on her part even if she had talent in that area. The natural conclusion jumped to by music buffs was that she didn't have talent, and was just a plastic creation of the pop-music marketing machine, given temporary success through exploitativeness. But a few fans saw past this image, and recognized that there was an interesting person and a talented singer beneath all the hype and exploitation, and that she could be a great musical artist someday if she was ever set free to express herself.
It took over a decade, and several aborted comeback attempts, but she finally did get her chance, and did something great with it. Her new album, The Color of Silence, hasn't caught on yet as a pop bestseller (though the online downloadable version is one of the most popular items on emusic.com), but it has received rave reviews from unexpected places, including Billboard, the major trade publication of the music industry, which called the new album "thoughtful and intelligent" and said that it "could easily be to 2000 what Alanis Morissette's Grammy Award-winning Jagged Little Pill was to 1995."
The new album is her own artistic creation, not something manufactured by an exploitative producer. She has songwriting credits all over the album, but even the songs she didn't write were chosen by her because they expressed feelings she wanted to express, not forced on her by somebody trying to make her a "pop craze." This album is from her heart, and if you saw the recent VH-1 Behind the Music special on her, you know that despite her fairly short lifetime so far (she's only 29 years old) she's had quite a few life experiences, not all of them very good. Many people know of the famous battle she had with her mother that included a lawsuit, and some blamed her for this (without knowing all the complex facts), but fortunately this and other family troubles are in the past now, and she is getting along well with her relatives. One of the people helping her through her troubles was bodyguard turned good friend Frank D'Amato, who died of cancer in 1999. The tragic loss of this friend inspired one of the songs on this new album, "If Only".
The leadoff single from the album is "I'm Not Sleeping", a duet with rapper Krayzie Bone. Many fans think a better choice would be "Open My Eyes", which in fact was originally announced as the first single before this was changed at the last minute. The latter is a catchier song, though there are a few fans who think that might be a liability given that Tiffany needs to show her evolution away from simple, catchy pop. Others say that Tiffany has no need to prove anything to anybody; she should make the artistic statement she wants to make, without worrying about all the second-guessers who might say that this is "too poppy" and that is "not poppy enough", or the other thing is "not what plays on radio these days", or whatever. She's not making a desperate play to get noticed again, but rather she's doing what she likes to do, and under her own terms this time, and that's what she'll do whether anyone else likes it or not. So far, many of the critics do like it, but whether she'll get on the pop charts again is still not known. The album is due to get a boost next month when BMG takes over as its distributor; this should get it some promotion it hasn't yet received.
Anyway, here are the tracks:
1) Open My Eyes: Tiffany had a song called "Close Our Eyes" on her All The Best album (released only in Asia), but this one has nothing to do with it. This was originally going to be the first single, but this was changed to the next track. It still deserves to be released as a single, because it's a very good song. The music has a folksy, acoustic sound, at parts of the song rising to an energetic crescendo, while at others reducing to a soft background to Tiffany's strong, confident vocals. She's asking somebody to open her eyes to see how her relationship with the lover she's singing to is built on lies and needs to end, but it seems like she's already seen this and is ready to move on.
2) I'm Not Sleeping: This duet with rapper Krayzie Bone was released as the first single. I've already reviewed it under the single's category.
3) P*ss U Off: I couldn't get that through that stupid Epinions bad-word filter unscathed. I bet you never expected Tiffany to ever have a song title that would raise concerns about getting through any bad-word filters. Another failed-relationship song, but this time she's not walking away -- she's sticking around to put her partner through hell. "Who cares if you hate my dog; Maybe I'll get another just to p*ss you off." Rather mean-spirited, but infectious anyway. When she sings that she's going to "play my favorite song," the music that follows sounds like a bagpipe, and you also hear the dog barking.
4) I Will Not Breakdown: Has kind of an Alanis Morrissette sound to its musical style as she says how she won't fall to pieces like her abusive partner wants.
5) Keep Walking: Has a nice piano opening reminiscent of late Beatles songs. Its line "Butterfly, I'm going to let you go," seems to foreshadow her song "Butterfly" later on the album.
6) If Only: As mentioned earlier, this is the song inspired by the loss of Tiffany's good friend to cancer. The music is a soft and restrained, but still emotional-sounding, piano (with some very light synthesizer effects) while she asks why she's left alone and wishes for some peace "if only for a moment."
7) Silence: Despite the title, this track isn't 4 minutes and 15 seconds of blank space on the CD with no sound. That wouldn't be an original idea if she did it, since avant-garde composer John Cage actually had a piece of that sort years ago. Ironically, the style of this song is actually noisier than most of the other tracks. She sings that "everything was different when I was seventeen," which for her was when she was being promoted as a pop craze but didn't have any significant input into her career or life, and thought the situation was normal because she knew nothing else. Now she doesn't "hear a sound but my own voice... Silence is what it is by my own choice." It seems to be about finding her place in the world after the disillusionment of what went before.
8) All The Talking: Has a nicely catchy hook. She's saying "I can't hear you, with all the talking," and "I don't care who's wrong or right, I just need a reason... just to see it through." It's a reminder that sometimes too much talk, especially of a heated and argumentative nature, can actually get in the way of communication.
9) Good Enough for Me: Has a jazzed-up sound with lots of synthesizers and echo effects, but very different from the "pop" uses of such effects on her earlier albums. For a change on this album, this song isn't expressing anger or disillusionment, but just contentment with how things are: "Sometimes I like to sit and watch the clouds for hours." She refers to a state of indecision, but puts it in the past: "Sometimes it's hard to know which way to go; Just when you think you won't figure it out you'll know." And she shows tolerance for others who find different personal truths than she did: "All that I need is what I see or rather what I feel; You believe what you wanna believe and that's alright with me." While some other songs on this album seem to be expressing her feelings from some of the troubled times she has had in her life, this one comes from the happier times she has reached after overcoming them.
10) Christening: Somebody named Ovis is credited with writing this song and playing the instruments on it. The credits don't say what kind of instruments they are, but they're certainly a different sound than the other songs. She seems to be trying to remold a boyfriend: "Take notes and I'll tell you when you got it right... No, no, you can leave your attitude; you're the only one it seems to matter to; Count votes and you'll see it in a brand new light." (No, please don't; I live in Palm Beach County, Florida, and I'm sick of vote-counting by now!) I think this song is a tongue-in-cheek reversal of the way she was manipulated, exploited, and turned into something artificial to suit others' ends; she's here trying to do the same to somebody else.
11) Betty: I don't know if there really was anyone named Betty in her life, but this song is about how shattered she is when Betty went away. Since she's not a lesbian, I assume Betty is a friend, not a lover. The song has moody vocals with subdued instrumentation.
12) Cinnamon:Another song with lots of hyped-up effects. She asks "Do you believe that you're dead when you die, or do you believe in a soul?", and "God knows that you're not blind; you just don't want to be saved." This is the closest she gets to explicitly mentioning her religious beliefs, but as she says on another song, "You believe what you wanna believe and that's alright with me," so she's not out to be preachy about what she believes in. She's said in interviews that she's a born-again Christian, but it's clear that, unlike some, she doesn't see a mission in life to get everyone else in the world to believe exactly as she does.
13) Butterfly: Another one about the end of an exploitative relationship: "I have outgrown my cocoon... I will have flown to the moon." As far as I know, she hasn't really had that much in the way of bad relationships of the romantic sort -- she's been happily married for many years now, and didn't have that many boyfriends before that. I think all the "bad-relationship" songs here are more metaphorical for all of the difficult times she has had with people from managers and producers to family members who have tried to control and exploit her life. She's past all of that now, and is able to get along with everyone, but it's given her some past emotional struggle which is source material for some bitter-sounding songs. With this off her chest now, I think we can expect future albums to have a more positive tone -- not the artificial positiveness of "manufactured" teen pop, but a genuine positiveness coming from her life coming together well.
You can read more about Tiffany on the fan site I maintain at www.tiffany.org, or on her official site, www.tiffanymusic.com.
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