Title:
Angel
Artist(s):
Sarah McLachlan
El-Camel's Ratings:
Label:
Arista Records
Reviewer:
michael white
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The sleeve of this CD single is heavy on the numbers game: top airplay hit in 11 countries; multi-platinum in the US; worldwide sales of over 12 million. The inference is clear: what's up with us Brits that Sarah sells so comparatively badly here? Are we out of step? (No, we've more Steps than we know how to deal with thank you!) Is it only a matter of time before the breakthrough? Or does it simply display our impeccable good taste in music as a nation? Ahem, moving right along… there's no one discernible reason, more a combination of circumstance. There's been a market for high quality, sensitive singer - songwriters in this country for as long as the genre has existed. Ultimately Sarah McLachlan probably needs just the one song to break her out of this ghetto but unfortunately, Angel isn't it.
Its gently plaintive, piano-based pleading exhibits exemplary vocals and heavenly atmospherics. This is one of those 'big' songs, dealing with the self-consciously 'big' human themes, that is ideal - in the eyes of the corporate cross-marketing department at least - for a blockbuster film soundtrack. So it comes as no surprise that Angel derives from City Of Angels - starring Nicholas Cage.
And there's the rub. Angel exists in an airbrushed no man's land of glossy emotion - and this isn't because Sarah is a prime mover of the all-girls-together, Lilith Fair travelling festival on the North American continent - but because her approach sits squarely between the two stools of '70s old school (Carol King etc)) and the internationally appealing bland land of film soundtracks: designed to push all the right buttons while that ubiquitous king of the deep voice-over trailers selected scenes. It will no doubt appeal to those in the early stages of love sickness and become a prime candidate as 'our tune' but it does Sarah no favours given the relative sincerity and depth of her album material. The wait goes on - and no mantra based on overwhelming figures alone is going to force down the doors of acceptance.
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Angel
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