T-pini•n: Seal Explores New Territory In Human Being
Written: Dec 25 '01 (Updated Dec 25 '01)
Product Rating:
Pros: And if I liked what you played, does that mean you’re right and I’m wrong…
Cons: Nothing but us pros here… there’s no easy way… to say goodbye…
The Bottom Line: Differing in feel from its predecessors, Human Being, the third release from Seal will take you to a place of healing and growth… no, it isn’t New Agey claptrap.
Scarring childhood disease, separation from mother, child abuse, running away, living on the dole in a London council flat. And then, returning in 1990 from an extended trip throughout Asia to record Killer, a single that shoots to the top of the British charts. Just a foretaste of things to come, as the pull of Sealhenry Samuel’s 1991 debut album, Seal, draws in listeners from rock, pop, dance and R&B orbits. He then steals the first ever hat-trick of wins at the 1992 Brit Awards. Not quite a rags-to-riches tale, but you can find the elements.
As his debut goes multi-platinum, Seal, prone to anxiety attacks, credits his friends with helping him cope with the lure of the limelight. He has a few bouts with the reaper before his sophomore release in 1994: a head-on car collision in LA, double pneumonia and post-viral fatigue—Cat Stevens aficionados will find parallels to the circumstances surrounding Cat’s third effort, Mona Bone Jakon.
Again titled Seal since he couldn’t think of another name, this release builds upon the eclectic range of topics found in his eponymous debut. The songwriting showcases a more pensive Seal—see mfontan (09/15/00)—while the singing spotlights a wider utilization of his vocal range. Seeking the positive in all his experiences, which provide thematic material for his songs, the questing optimism of Prayer For the Dying, Dreaming In Metaphors and Newborn Friend hint at a subtle maturing from the idealistic impulses that drove his earlier songs. The album truly takes off after the single Kiss From a Rose shows up in Batman Forever in 1995, and Seal goes on to another awards hat-trick, this time the 1996 Grammys.
So when I spy a new Seal album while browsing in a department store during the year-end shopping season sale in 1998, I have to snap it up. Rushing home, I pop in Human Being (with another slather of Seal gracing the cover) and lie back… only to be underwhelmed by what I hear.
What happened? So why so sad? Where are the power ballads like Don’t Cry, the snappy crunchy dancy flicker-beat of Killer? Why all the muted mumbling? No more duets with Joni Mitchell? Why mired in the penumbra of pessimism? I dismiss the album as a failure and Seal as a has-been.
I was wrong.
O my friend, I sometimes get things wrong to get things right.
I can still find people who recall Seal chiefly from his Batman soundtrack triumph who don’t realize that he has a third album; Warner Bros. failed dismally with its promotion. Quite a few of the reviewers at amazon.com mentioned that they stumbled across the CD by accident—bigmacsc99 (04/09/01). And like me, a number of them found themselves initially unimpressed with it.
I can only guess that the stifling stresses of my senior semesters had fogged my hearing; when I finally gave it a spin after a couple of years had passed and I’d been kicked out of college into grad school, Human Being immediately transported me to a place of forgetting and forgiving, of solitude and quietude. It quietly crept into the stack of CDs that supply my nocturnal sip of nectar needed to wash away the aftertaste of a tiring day.
Sometimes I fall and I feel like I don’t know the way. . . won’t you say if you can it’s okay?
Yea, the songs explore the drearier paths that we must pass through between birth and death—darker roads than we’ve heard Seal travel. Pain, heartbreak, regret, and despair are but some of the blind alleys. The dense liner notes—a transcription of email messages, instant messenger chats (a self-avowed gadget junkie, he’s also a member of one of the more quaint groups of people that grace our planet—Mac addicts), journal entries—hold several clues. You can find what appears to be a record of a bitter spat with his producer Trevor Horn, like Seal a perfectionist who had produced Seal’s first two—after severing relations in 1997, they reunited during the summer of 1998 to finish work on the album. Among the encouraging notes from friends, there’s an account of a breakup with his one and only, and perhaps even a friend’s suicide. No wonder.
But Seal has a gift that allows him to internalize the gloom and let it bloom into a thing of brittle beauty that can lead the willing listener to growth from passed sorrows. And so, though he cries plaintively of the need for reassurance, of loving and leaving and losing faith and the way, the lyrics, holding a hint of winter’s snap and the promise of a late spring thaw, contain an affirming trust that the load will be lightened and that changes for better will play out during the eternal dance between the sun and the moon.
While Human Being features the layered vocals and an offhanded adherence to a chorus that characterizes Seal’s first two efforts, the instruments provide a minimalist accompaniment in most of the songs. The earlier releases had songs that made feet start moving; this one lulls one into chin on cupped palm listening. Supported by a bass backbone, keyboards weave throughout the songs creating the mood. Trevor Horn adds orchestral synth sweeps to suffuse songs with a private, solitary sound. Liberal use of guitar distort and reverb adds to the lush composition, with the occasional thrash of strings lighting up the murkiness like fireflies—Still Love Remains. Some songs such as Colour (mentioned once by Seal as his then favorite song for its vision of a discrimination free world) and Excerpt From contain restrained, sparse intros which then soar to a hopeful high before settling.
I had to listen to the CD a number of times to describe the instrumental backing. In fact, I can only recall the insistent beat of the title song and the distinct picking in Colour between listenings. In most of the other songs, the instruments have been splashed on by Horn and Seal to accompany the star attraction—the singing. In one of his online chats, Seal professed that singing to him is like breathing. He makes the singing seem so loose and effortless with that voice of his. And what a voice it is.
These things forever change us…
A fragile spider web wrapping listeners in its silky embrace, it is a voice containing the welcome press of warm winter sunlight on skin, a voice that sponges off sullen shadows from the heart, a voice that soothes, caresses, brings forth tears and blow-kisses them dry.
Seal doesn’t foray into the power vocals of Don’t Cry or If I Could as often; a powerful voice willingly shackled emphasizes the points where he does belt it out. But in between, the voice takes on guises like a veteran actor. It goes from insistent pleading in Just Like You Said to a kittenish playfulness in Princess. It plays hide-and-seek with the wash of sounds starting Excerpt From before soaring to the song’s point. When a Man is Wrong finds him tender and regretful in what I’d choose as my favorite song in here if forced. Still Love Remains is simply smooth cream, cooing notes, weepy rest-your-head-on-your-partner’s-shoulders waltz, the last song before the bar closes, but there’s time for the sincere heartbreak of No Easy Way. . .
Look, I’ve been going on for a while. Simply put, Human Being is a feeling that runs through your veins, one that has no time, no space. . . taking you high, so that you can’t deny it, that’s when you’re in love. After an initial false start, I’ve been in love with this CD for a couple of years. Different in texture and ambiance from his first two (Seal has said that he’ll be returning to the feel of his second release for Togetherland, his forthcoming fourth title, slated tentatively for a February 2002 release), I feel this is the best Seal has given his fans so far. Its relatively unimpressive sales figure speaks to me of the worthlessness of such figures in assigning worth and means that I have an undiscovered gem I can press upon deserving friends.
And yes, it is absolutely true that numerous scientific tests performed under the strictest of laboratory conditions have concluded that the music from Human Being straightens bent backs, thins blood, lowers cholesterol and erases eons of emotional trauma and makes diets work. . . but it won't stop famine in Sudan and foolishness in the Middle East and banish terminal disease in children. Yet if it can calm a few upset minds and soothe some unhappy hearts, has it not done enough to deserve some accolade?
So throw away those incense sticks babe, turn down the light, jack up the sound, close your eyes and give this a spin. And know that while there’s danger in serenade, and yes, reason to be afraid, also. . .
. . . there’s reason to open your heart. . .
SEAL RESOURCES USED
Future Love Paradise: www.ultim.demon.co.uk/seal/main.html
Seal Fans: www.sealfans.com
Happy birthday LW. We’re mere human beings we die. . .
t-mark
Heard a music release that blew your socks away? Or one that just blew? Why not write and ring in the praises or warn the world about it? If you're a non-epinions member reading this, please consider joining this wonderful community of music reviewers just like you!
I hope you enjoyed the time you spent in getting to this point of my analysis. Please remember to rate this review.
Without your comments, this epinion is unfinished.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.