A Thread To Discuss The New Emma Bunton Album, "Free Me"

(The Franz Ferdinand album is very good though)

I think it hangs together very well as an album - I like the way that every song is a variation of one theme rather than the desperate hotchpotch of styles you might have otherwise expected from an ex-Spice Girl. Also, it's a theme which no one else is doing at all right now! She almost reminds me of Dusty Springfield at times - or at least, the stylisation does.

Franz Ferdinand were much better than I expected when I saw them live last night, but Emma's album is better by a very, very long way indeed. "No Sign Of Life" is my favourite, I think - devastatingly naive, she sings these incredibly angsty lyrics as if she hasn't quite grasped their emotional depth yet, but not because she's stupid but because she's innocent. Followed by "I'll Be There" and the bonkers "Crickets Sing For Annamaria".

(the songs are all really supertop too, apart from Amazing which is limp and rubbish and not aided at all by presence of some anonymous crooner-dude, but the rest is sparkly glory. Agree that it doesn't necessarily hang amazingly well together but the last third does seem to be sequenced so that it deliberately slows down and stretches and relaaaaaaaaxes rather than just running out of steam/ideas. And the title track sounds a billion times more wonderful now than it ever did last year and the rest is a swirly raspberry ripple of joy and drama-lite and urgent softy flurries and it probably won't do THAT well for her but should and will reiterate for millionth time that this is effortlessly the best solo-spice-album ever and It's Always The Quiet Ones and Emma! christ who'd've thunk it? etc)

Also, early lead in album of the year shocker.

I like the whole album. Even the title track has grown on me quite a bit.

I think Crickets is the next single actually.

http://www3.hmv.co.uk/hmv/Large_Images/HMV/9866158.JPGhttp://www3.hmv.co.uk/hmv/Large_Images/HMV/WIGCD136.JPG

Umm, Emma wins?

5. Breathing
6. Crickets Sing For Anamaria
7. No Sign Of Life
8. Who The Hell Are You

or :

9. Michael
10. Come On Home
11. 40'

Emma : "So what was it like writing all them tunes and those lyrics for people to sing, then?

Smokey Robinson (gentlemanly to a fault) "Well I....you know, I used to keep a tape recorder near my bed.."

Emma (brightly) : Me too!

Despite the utter bathos of the above, Emma has gone up in my estimation. It's a great little single and she looks.....well, great now! *Horny* really. The album cover is also grebt.

Emma (brightly) : Me too!

Aw bless!

(above based on Emma's* award-deserving oxymoron from "Maybe": "But I don't think so. Maybe I definitely know".)

(*written by E Bunton & Y Bondy)

Would still have liked a "Merry Go Round" type giggle.

Stop Press: Never mind; found lots of mischievous Baby Spice-type giggling I was looking for on Emma's official website, where she is interviewed about "Free Me". Lots of quintessential giggles. All is well.

5) EMMA BUNTON – Free Me (NEW ENTRY)

This is not a Bond theme. This is the Pebble Mill Big Band doing the theme to the Great Antiques Hunt, while Emma Bunton seems to be doing her vocals as a rehearsal for the speaking clock. Let’s get this straight, OK – Justin does not want to rock my body. And you most certainly do not long to seduce me. Now piss off.

-- William Bloody Swygart (thingummy9...), June 1st, 2003.

I take it you weren't all that impressed with this particular song at the time. How about an updated opinion on this thread you started? Maybe Emma is better at seduction than her lack of subtlety suggests.
She certainly has the last say in "Who the hell are you", in which she tells someone SHE doesn't like to piss off. Excellent stuff.
But I do agree with your comment earlier in this thread about "Breathing" as possibly the best track, if there is such a thing on an album where so many of the songs continue to grow on you.

by the way how do you insert links into this Message box

December 22, 2003
EMMA BUNTON - I'll Be There

Shocked. And awed. Well, maybe not shocked as such, but regardless, this is class. The general air is Heart FM potboiler, but with all the settings exactly perfect. Having tried 'Bond theme' on Free Me (and failed), followed by an attempt at 'Austin Powers' on Maybe (which was tons more successful), the general air is a bit 'Bonanza' this time round. I might only be saying that because there's a harmonica solo.

But think about that. There is a harmonica solo!!! On a single by her that used to be Baby Spice! Serious! There's acoustic guitars - and they're fantastic! Someone somewhere has actually given serious thought to the percussion arrangement!

True, this is still being sung by Emma Bunton, so it does still sound like her voice has been tinkered with to high heaven, but that doesn't matter. If this doesn't tear through early 2004, summat is wrong, very wrong indeed.
William B. Swygart | 05:02 PM | Comments (5)

Maybe soon sorted that incorrect opinion out. She was my second-least favourite Spice Girl, so I didn't show her the tolerance she deserved. Glad she proved everyone wrong, obviously.

Pimping = promoting, and I got the Maybe video off Emule.

Initially I thought so too, but on listening more carefully to the offending sections of "Free Me", it became clear that the effect is caused by Helene Muddisons enthusiastic (and moderately phased) backing vocals soaring over the top of Emma's, the combination of the two making "loose to" sound like "loosht". If anything, this is a mixing problem. Once you consciously recognise the cause of this effect, it no longer gets interpreted as mispronunciation and it sounds fine. Try it.