Disco de Amy Macdonald: “Curious Thing”

After slowly then fully falling in love with the first album I was indeed slightly disappointed by their second endeavor. But as with the first after listening to many times Amys vocals become clearer and more defined and the music becomes less muddled and more sophisticated. I am again truly amazed by Amy and her band. Although I am 55 years old I cannot believe this group has not become even more popular than they are, especially in the USA. I truly believe that their talent can easily take them into the realms of the best of the best of Rock and Roll! I haven't loved any group as much since the days of the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Yes, Stones and on and on and on..

Several years ago I saw Ms. MacDonald on the BBC's Graham Norton Show. I fell in love with her voice, and I've been following her career since. I don't know if I like her sophomore effort quite as well as her debut, but I've been listening to 'Curious Thing' for a couple of weeks now, and the music has not palled. I would recommend her highly.

I couldn't imagine a follow up CD could be just as good or better than "This Is the Life", but "A Curious Thing" is so fantastic. Her debut was great, but I don't know, this may be better. I can't stop listening to it. The sound is basically the same and the lyrics are sincere and shows just how good of a songwriter Amy is. The band deserves a round of applause. The piano player is awesome--especially tracks like "Pretty Face" and "Don't Tell Me That It's Over." It's so wonderful listening to an album that doesn't sound like everything else on the airwaves. She's unique and has her own sound. She is herself. That's why we all buy her music. There is not one bad song on this CD. If you can get your hands on the Switzerland or Finland import, it is well worth the price for the bonus track "Young Lovers." Only Amy MacDonald would give us bonus tracks and B sides that could be the next single. Did I mention this lady is brilliant?!!

Well whoever produced this album blew it. I was another person really looking forward to Amy's second CD. If I had been at a friends house and heard A Curious Thing as my introduction to Amy I would not have gone out and bought it and probably never would have bothered to track down This Is The Life, which was a fantastic CD.

All of the things you loved about This Is The Life are gone from this CD. The angst, the emotion, the stipped down instrumentals are all gone. Instead what you have is way to many instruments that play WAY to loudly and bury Amy's vocals somewhere in the background. So what this accomplishes is that now you can't sing along to any of the songs because you can't hear the words. And the next thing that goes south is that you can't even tell what the stories are that are behind the songs because you can't understand the lyrics. That is what made This Is The Life SO great. You could hear the stories and feel Amy's emotion while telling them - well so sorry, you can't do that here, her vocals are buried.

So sad, that sophomore slump has hit again. How many times lately has a fantastic first CD been followed up by a bad second effort? Maroon 5's second effort was weak, Evanesence stunk up their second release. I can think of one artist that got the 2nd effort right - even better than the first and that was Brandi Carlile. But Brandi had T Bone Burnett producing her 2nd effort. Amy, I wish you had T Bone, because this producer did you no favors.

A lot of great songs on this album. 1. Next Big Thing 2. Love Love 3. Don't Tell Me That it is Over. 4. Spark. 5.An ordinary Life 6. Give it all up 7. My only one. *. This pretty Face. Just about every song sounds like a hit.