NIkka Costa - Pebble To A Pearl

YOURZ

This is the kind of album that gets made over and over again - white soul records without a trace of real soul to them.  While the production is flawless and the musicianship high end, it is, as Mine points out below, Costa's voice that ultimately lets it down.  Honestly, she has a screechy top end that's thinner than toilet paper.

If you don't know anything about good soul music, this might appeal to you.  Thankfully I do and it doesn't.

VERDICT: THROW IT OUT

MINE

Lesson learned.  I picked this album up because it came recommended from one of my favourite bloggers - Carol Blymire of Alinea at Home.  Because I hadn't ever heard of Ms Costa, I tried out her song Stuck To You at YouTube.  And I thought it was damn catchy, and sought out the album - which I picked up second-hand for not that much money.

I only ever played it once, and today I figured out why.  It doesn't show on the YouTube version, but she has a voice that I just don't cotton to.  Some singers are like that.  I mean, I love the jazz divas but I can't stand Cleo Laine - she sounds to me like she's keeping a marble under her tongue while she sings.  And poor Nikka falls in to the Tina category.  Both Tina Turner and the lesser-known Aussie Tina Arena have what I call "thin" voices.  I'm kind of kinaesthetic when it comes to audio, and I see their voices as being sharp and narrow, kind of angular.  I prefer voices that are rounder, more full.  Geddit?  Probably not, but  there you are.

And quite apart from that, while Stuck To You is pretty good musically, the rest of the album's a bit ordinary.  Lesson learned, as I said.

VERDICT: THROW IT OUT

For more information: http://www.nikkacosta.com/