Blue Alert (CD/DVD)

Anjani, Anjani Thomas | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 24, 2007)
• Original Release Date: 2007
• Number of Discs: 2
• Label: Sony Legacy
• ASIN: B000NVL9DS
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #127,572 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

Disc: 1

1. Blue Alert (Album Version)

2. Innermost Door (Album Version)

3. The Golden Gate (Album Version)

4. Half The Perfect World (Album Version)

5. Nightingale (Album Version)

6. No One After You (Album Version)

7. Never Got To Love You (Album Version)

8. The Mist (Album Version)

9. Crazy To Love You (Album Version)

10. Thanks For The Dance (Album Version)

Disc: 2

1. Interview #1; Blue Alert (Video)

2. Interview #2; The Mist (Video)

3. The Mist (Video )

4. The Mist (Video)

5. The Mist (Video)

6. Thanks For The Dance (Video)

7. Thanks For The Dance (Unknown)

8. Thanks For The Dance (Video)

9. Thanks For The Dance (Video)

10. Innermost Door (Video)

See all 16 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Anjani and Leonard, July 25, 2006

By 

Charlotte A. Glassman "glassmac" (Troutman, NC USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Blue Alert (Audio CD)

Blue Alert has awakened me to music once again. For years I have been out of the music scene, ignoring music and listening to NPR. I caught an edition of the Bob Edward's show and heard Anjani's voice as well as the Leonard Cohen interview. Wow, the CD is wonderful. Cohen's voice in the lyrics is available and true yet, I hear a new voice rising. I've read all the reviews and agree with them mightly. The missing review is of Nightingale. What an incredible song.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A minimalistic jewel of a record., May 9, 2007

By 

Micki Zackary (Bombay, India) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blue Alert (CD/DVD) (Audio CD)

The Hawaiian-born singer-songwriter is well known as a protegee of reclusive poet and singer Leonard Cohen and her solo debut consists of songs created from lyrics Anjani gathered from decades of Cohen's writings.
Two songs have already appeared on Madeleine Peyroux's Half the Perfect World album.
Anjani is more of a torch singer than Peyroux, her pure, dramatic tones exposed over skeletal backing. Some songs sound rather too close to demos, but she still sustains a satisfying air of beautiful gloom.
Anjani Thomas delivers "Blue Alert's 10 songs in a sensuous style that blends the cocktail-jazz croonery of Norah Jones and Katie Melua with the torch-song technique of Julie London, her smoky vocals lounging languidly over sparse arrangements of piano, organ and vibes as she muses on the mysteries of love.
Cohen's presence is discernible in the painstaking craft of lines such as "Visions of her drawing near/ Arise, abide, and disappear", and in perennial Cohen romantic metaphors like "Thanks For The Dance", whose wistful clarinet and wee-small-hours arrangement help celebrate fading pleasures with the bittersweet sting appropriate for such a collusion of Svengali and Trilby: "Thanks for the dance/ And the baby I carried/ It was almost a daughter or son".
The result is a minimalist jewel of a record, the purity of Anjani's vocals needing only the backing of her electric piano, here and there helped along by a brushed drum, a purring guitar or a poignant clarinet. It's a classic small-hours album, by turns rueful, sad and bitter, while hearing the songs from a female voice adds another twist to their ambiguity.
It's often sad, but by shaking off the melodic restrictions of those lugubrious vocals, Anjani has arguably done more for her man than any previous muse or collaborator.

39 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A trinity of good things..., May 30, 2006

By 

Laurie Eckhout (Juneau, AK USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Blue Alert (Audio CD)

The mellow jazzy-ness of this CD is not my usual listening flavor. However, in the big scheme of things, there is nothing "usual" about this CD, period.

Initially, I focused in on the lyrics which undiluted by age, are typical Cohen-inspired, genius. Not typical as in predictable, but typical as in the high standards that you come to expect with Leonard Cohen.

So the words, although sung (beautifully) by Anjani, for me have the undertones of Leonard's deep voice, subliminally speaking in the background. But in reality it is just Anjani's voice giving life to the lyrics. She seems to forget there is a microphone. It feels very intimate and honest. Her voice honors the words and the music, a trinity of things working perfectly together.

This CD can easily play 'in the background.' It is quiet and serene and pleasant listening. But you really should pay attention to the things being said, how they are being said and the beautiful backdrop of melodies supporting the works to get the full impact of this quiet, giant of a CD.

regards,
Laurie