Let me tell you about my big brother. He’s 6’8" and wears 34/38 jeans. He’s 38 years old; he was very into heavy metal when he was in high school; and he’s a truck driver. Oh, and he likes Charlotte Church.

If you’re not scooping your jaw off the desk in front of you right now, you obviously don’t know who Charlotte Church is. Charlotte Church is a 13(?) year-old Welsh girl with an amazing operatic voice and some idiot over-producing bad songs for her.

I picked up her first CD for three reasons. A) It was free. B) I knew my brother liked it. C) She’s Welsh. It took about a week after acquisition to listen to it. Eventually, the guilt of having taken something I wasn’t using overwhelmed me and I popped it into Blue Meanie’s convenient CD-ROM drive.

The first song was boring, over-produced pap. I thought that was because it’s a commercial ("Just Wave Hello the Ford Millennium Anthem.") But then the second song started and it suffered from the same afflictions. By the third song I wasn’t even hearing it any more. It had melted to the back of my consciousness like the muzak that it is.

I perked up for track 9. Remember "Summertime" from Porgy and Bess? If you have any real love for that song you will want to avoid this rendition at all costs. I was halfway through it before I realized what it was. The lyrics on the liner notes are spelled out in the minstrel show dialect it was meant for, but I honestly don’t recall if young Charlotte ever said "an’ de livin’ is easy" or not. After I recovered from my horror I drifted back into my stupor until track 12.

Track 12 is the old folk song "She Moved Through the Fair." Charlotte had sung the first stanza before I realized what it was. I have heard this song performed dozens of times and, if I searched the house I could find at least 6 versions. While this isn’t the worst version I’ve ever heard, it’s no where near the best. (The best, as far as I’m concerned is performed by Dermot Summerville. But then I think Dermot’s versions of just about everything are the best.) "She Moves Through the Fair" is a song about a young man watching his beloved and knowing that he can’t have her until they’re married. Very emotional wouldn’t you say? Not here. Here it sounds like the Lord’s Prayer recited by a bored ten year old.

After "She Moved Through the Fair" ended I drifted back into my haze. I wanted to hear Men of Harlech because it’s partially sung in Welsh (a language whose major vowels are "y" and "w,") but I missed it entirely. The next thing I knew she was on to the last track "Lullaby."

Too bad really. Charlotte Church has a beautiful voice. If I were Kiri Te Kanawa I would be afraid of her. But the over-producing turns everything into soulless muzak. And the song choices themselves don’t seem to make sense. It’s like she had no say in what was going to be recorded. I understand that you can’t let a 13 year-old make these decisions, but wouldn’t it be better if she had some interest in the material? I’m surprised they didn’t have her doing "Danny Boy" or "Whiskey In the Jar."

Oh, I’ll hang onto the CD. Stuff like this makes great white noise for me. I’m not entertained by it enough to stop and listen, but I’m also not hearing my husband walk around downstairs. Plus, it’s great insight into my brother. He’s a bigger softie than I thought he was.


Recommended: No

Great Music to Play While: Going to Sleep