Where else could you find songs by Cy Coleman,Leiber & Stoller, Michael Bolton,Gilbert Becaud, Lionel Richie and Leslie Bricusse? On this new album by Dame Shirley Bassey. Apart from the song writing credits and the sheer nerve of it as an album, there is one over riding fact that just cannot be denied, Dame Bassey is 70 years of age and has not lost a single note of her singing range. The Welsh vocals are as strong and pitch perfect now as they were when she started out. Sinatra lost it toward his singing career as do many others. They are OK to listen to and even good enough to keep on recording but you know when you do listen that they are just not 'reaching it' as they use. Well on Get The Party Started, she does not fail once.
This is more Revisited than Remastered. A lot of Remix albums are just that, remixed backing to the same voice tracks. Not this one, it has some courageous mixing and brand new Bassey vocals and for the most part, it works.
Radio 2 have been drumming up the album by playing the title track, Pink's Get The Party Started with is luscious opening and it's this track which got me interested. It's a fab opening and sucks you in totally.
The reworking of Big Spender has a daring thumping bass complete with a Spanish trumpet mid section which does no harm to Massey's famous anthemic original recording. One of my favourite tracks and in retrospect a typical Bassey song which she should have attacked sooner, Slave To the Rhythym has a trumpet homage to the 007 theme sneaking in the intro. The 2 girl producers really know how to do the Bassy thing, What Now My Love went for a Bolera style backing which should have worked but didn't quite get there. Where the master mixing really comes into it's own is on Kiss Me Honey Honey. It's sung in a real slow tempo and sounds like a brand new song. My big dissapointment is the Barry track You Only Live Twice which is a song with all the elements right there in front of you and with the Bassey/Bond connection should have been a highlight of the album, but here it is reduced to an easy listening tune. Allowed some self indulgence, the producers Catherine Fenney and Niki Lamborn's own song The Living Tree makes an appearance and this in itself could have been a Bond theme song. I Will Survive has been covered a million times but is well worth a track listing here.
The success of this CD is not just the inspired track listing tailored for the singer but the fact that most remix albums are so heavily produced with over bearing backing music in which the very essence of a song can get lost in a pretentious cleverness of trying to make it sound like 'today' - but not here. The lavish orchestrations and the sheer power house volume of Bassey meet just at the right point to make this a fun album which you could wop on the player at any time.
In true diva style Bassey writes on her cover notes: "A special thank you to everyone who helps with the ups and downs, joys and frustrations in the day of a Dame ..."
If there is one gripe it't the packaging - an 8 page booklet with card covers which is squeezed into the front of the CD case so tight that you have to have to lever it out without tearing it.
FAVE TRACKS:
Get The Party Started
Slave To the Rhythym
Kiss Me Honey Honey
The Living Tree
