Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Now I can feel that this heart of mine has taken many falls

My copy of British singer Taio Cruz's album Departure arrived today--and boy, am I glad I ordered it. I missed his first two singles, "I Just Wanna Know" and "Moving On," when they came out last year, but loved the R&B-meets-electropop "Come On Girl" (featuring Luciana) from this year--that definitely got me interested in him. As I mentioned earlier, when Jessica posted two brilliant songs from him, "I'll Never Love Again" and "Fly Away," over on Into The Groove, I was 95% convinced his was an album I had to have. The final thing that pushed me over the edge? Hearing his latest single, "I Can Be"--I mean, if he could have already released three singles, have two fantastic so-far-not-yet-a-single album tracks, and then be releasing something this great for a fourth single, that seemed like a good indicator that the album must be pretty impressive.

If you've got the money, Departure is definitely worth your time; I'm not going to review it at the moment (if you want a review, check here), especially since I just got it today (maybe in the future), but please take 3 minutes and 53 seconds to listen to "I Can Be." If you had to choose one word for this song, I think it'd be "inspirational." Set aside any cynicism for a moment and just enjoy a lovely strings-backed feel good song song (with an African chant-esque backing part near the end that I love), the sort of thing you turn to when you need a comforting shot of hope. "Come On Girl" is great, but somehow this feels like it's got...I don't know, more nutritional value or something, easy as it might be to call the chorus lyrics simple. If you've ignored him up until now, I think you might be pleasantly surprised with this.



I'm so glad we've got him around.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oooh i love Taio Cruz.
'Come On Girl' is one of the best electropop songs of the year so far.

Have you heard Round & Round yet by 'US5', their singles had been good but nothing wow so far then i heard their new one 'Round & Round' and its really AMAZING.
The blond ones are looking rather nice to in the video ^.^
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=aF8cbImXO9o

Conor
x

Poster Girl said...

"Come On Girl" is definitely great! He's got his own sound going, which I love.

I had no idea they had a new single (soon) out! I did really like "Rhythm Of Life" last year--I like this one, I think! I really love the sound of the "that girl means trouble" and "she's not your lover" lines. Yeah, I'll definitely buy this when it comes out--thanks for the tip!

(I think I've just played the video five times or something, if that's any indication of how much I'm going to end up liking it ;) )

AcerBen said...

Loving the new Taio Cruz one. Great production on it.

Anonymous said...

I agree with Anonymous - COME ON GIRL is really fantastic. There's someone to took cold sounding electro and actually made it sound sexy. Shame in the video he doesn't display as much personality as the fabulous Luciana. That girl has cornered the market in spoken sexy lyrics.

Poster Girl said...

You're exactly right--it's a sound I really like, and one I'm so glad someone had the idea to do. Luciana is definitely amazing--seeing her pop up anywhere is always welcome, though it does mean you're going to have to have a lot of charisma to stand on equal footing with her even if she's just a "featuring" on your song!