Customer Reviews

A Collection 1984-1989

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The Siberry Collection contains tracks from this Canadian artist's earliest albums No Borders Here, The Walking, The Speckless Sky and Bound By The Beauty. I Muse Aloud is a bubbly mid-tempo song, The Waitress is a short pop ditty and Mimi On The Beach is a longer, wonderfully descriptive excursion. You Don't Need, a sad song of lost love, concludes the tracks from No Borders Here. It is a pity that the tuneful Follow Me was omitted.

One More Colour is a prime example of her melodic and poetic mastery, an expansive ballad with heavenly vocals and lovely imagery. Seven Steps To The Wall is a long ballad with tempo variation and beautiful vocal arrangements while Map Of The World is an impressive fast ballad with a slow build, galloping rhythm and oneiric quality. The wonderfully evocative The Life Is The Red Wagon is followed by Miss Punta Blanca, a delicate, almost whispered song.

This great collection concludes with Siberry's spectacularly uplifting Bound By The Beauty, a joyous song with a lilting rhythm and soaring vocals. I miss the songs Follow Me, Vladimir Vladimir and Hockey on this compilation but it really is worth one's while to acquire the aforementioned solo albums as they're all masterpieces that reveal more of the talent of this gifted singer and composer.

I'm reading all sorts of things to describe this lady's music, one of which is the most meaningless term to ever be applied to music--"alternative". The term had its genesis in the college radio market and took in so many different sounds that it became a generic accolade. If you didn't listen to some artist peers called "alternative", you had no taste--period. But U2 were once known as alternative. Hard-Prog band Dream Theater were called alternative. The leader of "X" once defined the difference between alternative and punk as "about ten years". But listen to Siberry's music as defined here and you find a very versatile artist in this woman who clearly never aimed at the Whitney Houston fanbase. "Map Of the World" is clearly semi-prog that's a cross between Laurie Anderson and the Collins-period Genesis. "The Walking" starts out an introspective if overly mellow piano ballad--but just when you're about to write it off as ear candy, a powerful rhythm section of drums and treble boosted bass kicks in, giving the song a flavor of North African funk like Paul Simon's "Boy In the Bubble" without even changing the tempo, the introspective feel of the lyrics or Siberry's heartfelt vocal delivery. I think the real reason Siberry never exactly became a household name was that you couldn't pigeonhole her. The pop market can't stand that--they suggest the term "wierdo" without really saying it. Well, I've got dozens of records by Siberry and other "wierdos" like her. Versatility like hers may be called "inconsisitency" by people with hair-trigger boredom reflexes, but I prefer to call it "interesting".

While it begins and ends with two songs that I have very lukewarm feelings about, this collection is an excellent survey of the work that Jane did in the 80's. It's organized in chronological order and contains 3-4 songs from "No Borders Here", "The Speckless Sky", "The Walking" and "Bound by the Beauty". [The first two albums are out of print, and "The Walking" is only available as an import, so this collection definitely saves those who want a taste of Jane some money.] This complation does a pretty good job of selecting the best/most distinctive songs from each album. However, the disc does have a fairly disjointed feel, simply because Jane has undergone so many HUGE changes in her sound that it would be impossible to maintain stylistic consistency in a survey album. The first two albums are firmly entrenched in the 80's pop/rock sound, but Jane manages to twist conventions by cleverly manipulating rather generic production. "The Walking" is a more free-form, ambitious take on the first two albums, with impressionistic lyrics and meandering song structures. "Bound by the Beauty" is, oddly enough, very country-sounding. Vocal overdubs and meter changes are applied liberally throughout, and the whole album benefits from a playfulness most apparent in the early works such as "The Waitress" and the semi-hit "Mimi on the Beach" (but also in the later song "Everything Reminds me of my Dog"). Jane is also capable of seering emotional intensity, showcased in songs like "You Don't Need" and "The Taxi Ride". My only major complaint about this compilation is that it contains no selections from her out of print, self-titled 1981 debut. If you can find that (ebay would be a good place to look), I HIGHLY recommend it. Still, this album is well worth the money and would make an excellent sampler of Jane's best work.

While it begins and ends with two songs that I have very lukewarm feelings about, this collection is an excellent survey of the work that Jane did in the 80's. It's organized in chronological order and contains 3-4 songs from "No Borders Here", "The Speckless Sky", "The Walking" and "Bound by the Beauty". [The first two albums are out of print, and "The Walking" is only available as an import, so this collection definitely saves those who want a taste of Jane some money.] This complation does a pretty good job of selecting the best/most distinctive songs from each album. However, the disc does have a fairly disjointed feel, simply because Jane has undergone so many HUGE changes in her sound that it would be impossible to maintain stylistic consistency in a survey album. The first two albums are firmly entrenched in the 80's pop/rock sound, but Jane manages to twist conventions by cleverly manipulating rather generic production. "The Walking" is a more free-form, ambitious take on the first two albums, with impressionistic lyrics and meandering song structures. "Bound by the Beauty" is, oddly enough, very country-sounding. Vocal overdubs and meter changes are applied liberally throughout, and the whole album benefits from a playfulness most apparent in the early works such as "The Waitress" and the semi-hit "Mimi on the Beach" (but also in the later song "Everything Reminds me of my Dog"). Jane is also capable of seering emotional intensity, showcased in songs like "You Don't Need" and "The Taxi Ride". My only major complaint about this compilation is that it contains no selections from her out of print, self-titled 1981 debut. If you can find that (ebay would be a good place to look), I HIGHLY recommend it. Still, this album is well worth the money and would make an excellent sampler of Jane's best work.