...'cause when I fall from heaven, will I be forgiven?

Hopefully we'll have something ridiculous and upbeat tomorrow, but for now, a ballad (eep). I wrote about South African singer and former Idols contestant Wafeeq's single classical music-sampling club song "Love Crime" a while ago and only finally got his album just recently. I'm actually very pleased with it; it's good--and, from what I can tell, it really is original material (in the sense of not a bunch of covers recycled from other countries), since all the songs share one or two common songwriters--well, except one, and that's the one I'm sharing. If I'm remembering all this correctly, this song was credited to two writers, one of which was an "S. Perry" (I only remember that because my first thought was of Steve Perry); I haven't been able to find any evidence of anyone else doing a version of it, though, so if you know of one, please let me know! Anyway, back to Wafeeq: despite appearing on the second season of Idols in 2003, he's only just got to release his debut album within the past year or so, so really, he's had to work in the meantime. Most of Hit 'N Go is uptempo, but oddly enough, my favorite song on the album (so far) may very well be this song, the second to last track on the album and one of the album's slower songs.

Fall From Grace--from the first time I heard a clip of this song, I was pretty sure I'd love it--really, I wanted it enough that I probably would have got the album even just for this. It's a mid-tempo ballad that uses the whole grace/heaven metaphor to sing about the damage he's caused to a relationship. "Fall From Grace" features lots of percussion rolls and clicks, which really help the song by giving the already strong melody a distinctive backing. And really, it is a strong melody, one perfect for singing along with, especially the chorus and middle 8 (I love that section at 2:22)--I guess the song is kind of "adult contemporary/MOR," but it's a great example of it if it is. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see "Fall From Grace" crop up on other artists' albums in the future--it's a great song that would deserve it...but if that never happens, it's more than fine, because there's nothing I'd change about Wafeeq's performance of it.

To buy Wafeeq's album Hit 'N Go, go here (physical).

Next up: well, I did mean to write about a certain Swedish artist today, but she's not "ridiculous and upbeat," so maybe she'll have to wait two days so we can do something that is.