Idina Menzel
Idina
Warner Brothers
THIS is the collection on which the musical theatre superstar, best known outside of those circles for her rendition of the Oscar-winning song Let It Go on the soundtrack of the Disney film Frozen, attempts to "do an Adele" and claim the mainstream of pop. For all its international ambitions, however, Idina is the most American of albums, and that is substantially down to Menzel herself, whose personal "journey", as they say, from heartbreak to romantic contentment it explicitly chronicles, in the firm believe that we will all benefit from her sharing. On first single I See You, which boasts a lovely Beatles/ELO string arrangement, she sings "I feel your pain" with no discernible irony.
If you can take all this at face value – the only sensible course of action – this 12 song collection has plenty of highlights. Her chief associate is producer and multi-instrumentalist Greg Wells, and many of the tracks are little more than his mastery of technology, with fascinating sonic details, and her multi-tracked vocals, reinventing the power ballad in various tempi. An artfully packaged set, the comparative lyrical ambiguity of I Do and the rare flash of humour in Cake stand out among the confessional, and the acoustic Nothin' in this World is a heart-warming closer.
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