Customer Reviews

Been There

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

"Once Upon A Time," I didn't know about Ebba's music. Now, it will "Take Me Sometime" to stop the continuous play. These two tracks, along with "Most of All" and "Hold Me," are my personal favorites. This CD has no "fillers." Every track is terrific. If you're a fan of Sarah McLauglin, Natalie Merchant, Phoebe Snow, Oleta Adams, or Nina Simone, add this to your collection and let Ebba take you away... Hope I won't have to wait too long for Ebba's next CD.

I only wanted this cd for 1 song, Hold Me. I just love that song and I haven't heard it for years. It brings back a lot of memories! Thanks for sending it quickly!

I first heard "Lost Count" on the radio and thought, "She has a great sound." Then I saw her CD at a music store and bought it on a whim. I'm so glad I did! She has such as amazing voice and her music writing talents are enviable to say the least. I think her sister wrote all her lyrics, except "Photographs" which is one of my favorites. I also love "Hold Me" and "You Surprise Me." When I want to relax or wind down after a stressful day, I listen to this CD and I always feel so much better. Deffinately buy this CD, you'll love it!!

Three Stars only, yes, but there's a place in the world for Three Star albums.

No matter the standard comparisons, Ebba Forsberg is actually less a vocal resemblant of Randy Crawford, than a dead-ringer for Dido. But maybe I conjugate the verb incorrectly; it should be perhaps not "is a" but "was." For Ebba, talent no matter, is now moot and mute. Gone, as it were. Went Nowhere that Dido's decibel-doppelganger, flutey, vibrattoless tone hasn't now identically occupied very much elsewhere, Somewhere, all celebrated, sampled, referenced, and well known. Sad, that. For Ebba's a whole lot more talented and picturesque than the congratulated, chart-topping Miss Dido.

But perhaps it is all what the sweetly sullen Miss Forsberg, if you'll listen closely to her lyrics and within them, always thought--somewhere inside her, beneath the outward efforts--WOULD happen to her career. The songs ebb and fill with autoprophetic pathos, the personal soundtrack of an artist deeply, genuinely, constitutionally unhappy. Possessed of a classically scandinavian statuary look, she also bears that classically scandinavian look-down. Forlorn to the bone, however well sculpted. What beauty she makes of all this musically is her reason for being, for singing. But dreariness weighs heavy, and even the drawn listener must eventually draw back. I do.

But, still, in countless cash-out cullings of my own CD collection to the Used Record stores, I have never been able to rid myself of this one, depression notwithstanding. Greater works than this haven't survived the cut. I know why. "Lost Count," her first song, saves it every time, with no small help from the next two, the last of this triumvirate being "Carried," considered about as good an explicitly pro-God song as you'll ever find in the Secular. But it's still a sort of "Let There Be Light" from out there in Seasonal Affective Disorder. And Miss Forsberg sings with little exception of such twilight, in twilit hues, from twilighting casts. Even her upbeat moments are crepuscular counterfeits, unconvincing but welcome attempts to talk her and you into something I call La Vie en Pose, the making-believe of something into actual existence, the actress here at her piano hoping against the moping to finally become the actor of sunshine, eventually no longer acting. But like all the things we deign to Will into their Existence, it all sloughs off when the will tires and dies, as it must, the whole attempt in this case lasting the length of any song. Which puts the listener back where Ebba really lives, both between the songs and during them: in a mostly melancholic timbre, softly tossing off her deeply-believed sad-life thoughts in the connecting membrane between a serenity of acquiescent fatigue and a hopeless unaccepting ache. It takes a good bit of life, deep or wide, to realize a certain heretical truth held within Anguish: that there IS pain that is worth living to feel. Ebba knows it. And I would like to hear more of this she knows. She's a translator of Sundowns.

Now, all this still might have made it from a First album to a Second one. And from Three Stars and Few Sales...to Five and Millionairingly Many. There's a place in the world for sad songs whose sadness may lead the listeners to catharsis. Who knows what would have done the Dido fame-trick for dear Ebba? Less sorrow? A false music-smile for mass radio-friendliness and an anemic marrow of easy-access lyrics? Not what I myself, by no means a card-carryimg member of the common audience, would want. But even I find myself wishing for more from this. Stronger, more adherently hummable hooks, the very litmus and clincher of All That Would Be Music. And the acid test, too, of most Music That Will Be Bought.

But: I'll add this in eulogy for Ebba Forsberg's sadly unpotentiated career: In a friend's record store I've watched heads softly snap around when this album was played as a social experiment. For my sake. "Is this DIDO?" they asked, two of the customers, independently coming counterward within a minute. "No," I wanted to answer in earshot, butting in, unhappily proven right. "But it sure shoulda been."

There are no "sleepers" on this album. She lifts you up and carries you through right to the very last note.Can't wait to hear more from this refreshing new artist.

Ebba delivers an amazing album with a voice reminiscent of Randy Crawford and a musical background that is simple but sophisticated enough to keep you engaged over and again. This is a love at first listen album. She leads with this seductive voice that begs your attention, forcing you to listen to what she says while making you want desparately to sing with her. It is approach/avoidance at its best because if you sing, you can't hear her..and baby you want to hear her. Good range of tempo on the album to keep you with her. Enjoy

...She truly is. Have you all noticed all the music coming from sweden? look at this. Ebba Forsberg, Baxter, Robyn, Ace Of Base, Roxette, ABBA, Eagle Eye Cherry, Neneh Cherry..the list goes on and on.

The Music is great and my favourite tracks on this album are: "Didn't Treat Me Right", "Lost Count", "Hold Me" and "Once Upon A Time".

Love it!

I caught Ebba as the opening act for Neil Finn last summer and was mesmerized by her stage presence and the craftsmanship of her songs. Her album, bought the next day, has been a constant keeper in my CD wallet for road trips. While some of her lyrics betray her command of the English language, others shine in ways that always make me stop and think. "I asked my God why he abandoned me" isn't exactly something you'll hear on a Jewell record. Comparisons to Natalie Merchant or Paula Cole seems unfair--she's that unique. Give her a try!

I heard Ebba for the first time in a television show in Sweden a long time ago. I then realised that this was something special. I hope that her next album will be out soon.

Emotive & heartfelt lyrics. Her voice has just enough edge & variety to make it consistantly interesting. If you listened to Jackson Browne twenty years ago maybe you should give a listen.