cletta1201's Full Review: Acoustic Soul by India.Arie
With the Grammy’s on the loom and with India.Arie having the possibility to win 7 of the coveted gold statues, I thought now would be an appropriate time to take a look at her debut album Acoustic Soul. 2001 was a big year for R&B music and Motown scored big with India.Arie. The album’s lead single Video was a runaway hit. Carrying a message of self-worth and pride, women everywhere could relate to what India.Arie was saying: ”I’m not your average girl in a video/ My worth is not determined by the price of my clothes…”. Although the lyrics weren’t that strong, the driving message and sincerity of the song made it a hit.
My one qualm with the album (if you could call it a qualm), is that the “sound” isn’t very consistent. Acoustic Soul is R&B, it’s Blues, it’s Folk and it tends to jump around a little. Going from Video to the very folksy sounding Promises kind of throws me. I like Promises, but in the order that it comes, it just seems a little out of place. Brown Skin is sultry and good. “Where are your people from?/ Maybe Mississippi/ Or an island/ Apparently your skin has been kissed by the sun/ You make me wanna Hershey’s kiss your licorice/ Every time I see your lips/ It makes me think of honey coated chocolate/ Your kisses are worth more than gold to me/ I’ll be your almond joy/ You’ll be my sugar daddy”. The guitar and drums on this song are very strong, but India.Arie sounds even stronger on this salute to brown love.
Following along the same lines as Video, Strength, Courage, & Wisdom is equally as empowering. It’s about breaking out of ones shell and just doing what you have to do. The production on this song is amazingly uncomplex, you can hear every element of the music. Songs like these (SCW and Video) are what make India.Arie unique. She’s not selling you sex. She’s giving you respect and good music, which has really become a novelty within the music industry. Nature to me is another of those tracks that kind of catches me off guard. It sounds like it could have been done by someone like Brandy. On this track, India.Arie’s voice sounds very husky, but still powerful. It has an interesting composition using not only the guitar and bass but also cello, viola and violin. It also contains an interpolation of “Quiet Storm” by Mobb Deep, which you definitely can pick up if you’re into hip-hop at all. On Nature, the sample is smooth and you can’t imagine that listening to this song, that it was a hard-hitting hip-hop song.
Back To The Middle is along the same lines as Promises. You can picture India.Arie sitting on a porch, that you had to take a dirt road to get to, sitting in a rocking chair with her guitar and just singing her heart out. I don’t really care too much for this song, it is well produced, and I don’t hate it, but I do tend to skip right over it when listening. Ready For Love is really a great song. About wanting to be loved and in love. The best part of this song is the beginning when its just India.Arie singing and very few sounds (the omnipresent guitar and a piano) are heard. It builds up a little, but not enough to take away from the raw sense of the song.
Always In My Head sounds very R&B. Just bob you head good, a mid-tempo ode to a lover, this one is good. I respect an artists desire to experiment with different sounds, but as good as this one sounds, it is hard to imagine that they wouldn’t have picked more songs that are along these lines. They seem to suit the strength of India.Arie’s voice and her lyricism, too bad I’m not in the business. I See God In You seems a little strange, at least the lyrics do. It’s about admiring someone from a distance and seeing “ The God” in them. I guess all artists have different interpretations and meanings behind their lyrics and this song was written solely by India.Arie, but the sound changes again, and this one for me, isn’t that good. Again, the album changes back to more R&B with Simple. On this one, the background vocals are what make it unique. It also contains a really interesting synthesizer loop that adds a little something extra to the song. This is another of my album favorites. Part Of My Life sounds like old school R&B. Like it could have been in the days of Tony Toni Toné. It’s an upbeat song whose lyrics I never pay attention to. But I do know the chorus and think it is the best part of the song.
And just when you get 2 songs in a row that sound a certain way, you get a curveball with Beautiful. Once again, not a terrible song, just one that you might not be expecting. It’s very stripped down, like it was done for MTV Unplugged.
There are more things that I like on this album than not. But here are the things that I really don’t like. The Intro, Interlude and Outro they are all terrible. But worse than those things, I don’t like Wonderful which was a tribute to Stevie Wonder. For some reason I think that India.Arie sounds not so good on this song. I don’t think anything about it showcases her talent as a singer or musician. And it contains lyrics that are titles of Stevie’s songs which I think is really juvenile, but that’s just my opinion.
The more I reflect on this album and listen, I think that India.Arie’s voice isn’t that amazing. But what makes her stick out is imaging and clever production. She’s not a “bad” singer, she’s just not an outstanding one. Acoustic Soul is a very down to earth album, and definitely one worth listening to, I think this one’s going to be around for quite some time.
Track Listing
Intro~ Video ~ Promises ~ Brown Skin ~ Strength, Courage & Wisdom ~ Nature ~ Back To The Middle ~ Ready For Love ~ Interlude ~ Always In My Head ~ I See God In You ~ Simple ~ Part Of My Life ~ Beautiful ~ Outro ~ Bonus Track- Wonderful (Stevie Wonder Dedication).
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