I never understood where the market for all these ballad albums are. How many people in the mostly male dominated fanbase for melodic rock are clamoring for an disc with nothing but romantic songs packed upon it? For the geriatric set, its understandable for crooners that are favorites with the older females. They can get away with it and make a profit in the process. Rod Stewart, Tom Jones, Barbara Streisand even...there's prescedence for it since releases such as that are eaten up by baby boomers and desperate guys hoping to get laid...but for
Jeff Scott Soto? A vocalist known just as much for being a rock n roller as he is for the sweet songbird side? Then again, maybe they are on to something.
Axel Rudi Pell has certainly done well enough with his ballad collections. These have been popular enough to warrant three installments thus far. So I suppose JSS is worthy of one too.
Just look at all the projects Jeff has done over the years and there is definitely a gigantic wealth of soft stuff to draw upon.
Talisman,
Takara, Human Clay, solo and with bands and booging down doing disco and a million cover songs for a hundred tribute cds...and that is just a small portion of his discography. How much fun would a compilation disc be that incorporated songs taken from a wide variety of his work? But the record label didn't go through all the legal tape to secure the rights to something like that, so instead we get this. Essential Ballads sticks to the three solo discs of Mr. Soto: the lesser known mid 90s oddity "Love Parade", the more
AOR devised "Prism" and the recent "Lost in Translation", plus the EPs. They also threw in three unreleased pieces from the Slam sessions to make the deal more tempting for those that already own JSS's stuff. A smooth move on their part, for if you are into melodic rock and/or great vocalists at all, you likely have at least one of these records in your collection somewhere.
You can't fault the material, this is jampacked with the cream of the crop that's all talkin' bout love, nor the running time which is stretched out to a nice 71 minutes. Wonderful music belted from the cockles of the heart, burning with raw emotion and unparalleled passion. This is the voice of
Jeff Scott Soto and these are the flames of romance that burn brightly.
Essential Ballads comes with four tracks from the five on the "Believe In Me" EP, which is a nifty treat for those that missed out on this precursor to "Lost in the Translation".
None of these made the cut for the full release so this is a really sweet bonus. The relaxed, acoustic driven "As I Do 2 U", the vocal showcase of the even more stripped down "This Ain't Love", a caressing pop ballad "Lonely Shade of Blue" - which is a softer version of one of JSS's
Takara songs, and finally the lovely "Still Be Loving U", which has this very pretty lacey like acoustic guitar to match the vocals.
The "new" material includes "Through It All", a ballad that's a little too close to the acoustic side for comfort. It seems to miss some of the romantic spark that fuels the others. "Last Mistake" flows in a midtempo manner and could be mistaken for a
Talisman song. Finally there's the poppy feel of "Another Try". A saccharine slick chorus tops it off nicely.
Everything else can be located on the three studio albums. Of special note are the power fueled ballads of "Till the End of Time" and "If This is the End" and the vocally driven "Sacred Eyes" that puts the spotlight on JSS's vocal skills. "Send Her My Love" is a light and feathery rendition of the gushy
Journey classic. All the songs here are worthy of playing and replaying, it is just a little bit of an overkill having them parade after each other.
If "Love Parade" or the "Believe In Me" EP were missed or skipped, then this is a nice pickup piece for the Jeff fan. There's certainly alot of great ballads on display here. For those that own everything already, the three unreleased tracks are not strong enough to warrant a purchase. Otherwise, this is a well put together compilation of solo Soto's balladry skills. You can't detract from the music though, only wonder why Frontiers chose a presentation like this to cash in. There's not even any brand new tracks freshly recorded for this release only, which would have increased the value tenfold. That might have pushed it into earning its Essential title. One can only assess what they have at hand and in this case, that is an album that reviews the past pieces of sleepy heartbreak, love sick celebrations and robbed romance...non essential, but still a nice collection.
Written by
Alanna Tuesday, May 30, 2006
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