Customer Reviews

Enchantment

5 star:		(211)
4 star:		(43)
3 star:		(36)
2 star:		(39)
1 star:		(171)

 

 

Other reviewers have complained with some apparent authority about a lack of talent here, but I found Charlotte Church's voice to be fundamentally quite pleasing. It is strong, clean and clear, and seems to have a range more than adequate for the music on this CD. I thought her control was fine (and I do have a musical background, so I am not completely ignorant on these matters).

Where Enchantment fell down for me was not in the technical area, but in the absolute banality of the selections and a lack of any artistic expression throughout. The folk tunes and opera and broadway hits all sound basically the same. The selections themselves are a hodgepodge with no sense of either trying to make a coherent albumn or showcasing Church's talents - I suspect sobody just picked 15 tracks that they thought had the name recognition to sell. And while the technical performance is fine, none of the tracks have any intensity at all. It's all rather bland.

Maybe sometime Church will do her own albumn, somthing that establishes her own identity and on which she can put her own stamp. Until then, I'll take a pass, I think.

Compare to her previous albums, this one ranks closer to the bottom. When she was younger, say elevenish, her voice was lovely to listen to. It was a sweet, angelic voice so like a young girl at that age should sound with a potential of becoming a power house in the future. But now in her mid teens, Miss Church has yet to reach that point and one wonders now if she ever will. Her voice has not gotten better nor worse.

Like a previous reviewer said, the strain in her voice is evident and sometimes a little painful to listen to. There are some songs where she's straining towards a range her vocal chords can not handle and there are other times like in "Papa can you here me?" where here voice is just above whisper (cranking the volume is needed). In fact, her pitch is not the same, at least to my ears it isn't. It sounds as if it's been lowered a key or two. Another thing with her singing is that I hear a lot of air before the words come out. Her voice does not come out as clear or pure as it could be. There is just too much whooshing sounds for me to continue listening to this CD.

I love show tunes from time to time and I'm familiar with most of the songs on this album. Although I believe Miss Church did put in a great effort, she missed her mark. If you want to listen to an Opera/Pop/Broadway style of music, I recommend Sarah Brightman (albums: Dive, Eden, or La Luna).

Charlotte Church still sounds the same... Cold and boring...
After 3 albums, I expect this album to be a lot better, but after listening to it, I find it (still) a disappointment... Where's the improvement?

I think the main problem with this album is the choice of songs. I think Miss Church would do better singing songs specially written for her (like a pop star?). Most of the songs she sing in this album have better versions, sang by more mature singers with better interpretation and techniques.

Her version of "Habanera" is especially weak. I would prefer it if she sings the original version of this famous aria... With notes and orchestral accompaniment exactly the same as the one Bizet had written. However, I don't think Miss Church would sound very good singing the original version either. Her voice is still of a boy-soprano quality which would not be strong and expressive enough for this aria which is demanding ---usually sang by more mature and established opera singers. She is trying to sound more mature here... But I think it wasn't that successful...

Her version of "The Little Horses" is a bit too slow for me and the accompaniment seems too loud. I would like this track better if she did it a little faster. However, I still think that a singer which much lower and deeper voice would do this song better. :-)

"The Laughing Song" is straining... Especially on those high notes!!! EEEEEKKKKKSSSS!!!!

The more outstanding tracks (I think) are "Carrickfergus" and "Papa Can You Hear Me?"... Other than that, the other tracks just isn't too well sung to leave a deep impression....

I hope Miss Church's next album would be better....

This girl has a good voice, but she wallows in rehashes of songs that have been performed better by other artists. Does she not have access to some original material? How many times can someone sing remakes of old songs and make them sound like opera and keep selling albums? The commercial for this cd on TV alone is stomach turning.

It's sad for me to see such a young talent head in the direction Charlotte Church is heading. Sitting back and listening to this girl sing songs meant for mature voices, before having been properly trained is egregious.
Charlotte Church is a product of a culture who doesn't care about the long term - a culture bent on instant gratification. Watching Charlotte Church sing gives an indication as to how true this is.
First - her tone is weak and breathy. This is nothing worth faulting her on...it's merely a product of her age. She's too young to be singing what she's being told to sing.
Second - her jaw tension is bad enough to injure those around her. When you watch Charlotte sing her jaw flaps up and down. This is something that needs to be dealt with. Too much jaw tension could very well be this singers undoing (not to mention her collapsed sternum, high breathing and abnormal vowel construction).
Many people will debate that Charlotte Church is undermining the whole of the opera community by instilling false standards on the ears of the public. Ardent singers say that she's a sign of the collapse of classical music. This I will take issue with. If someone is bring opera and classical music to the masses then more power to them, however, this should not be done at the expense of the singer's talents. Charlotte Church is not ready for the amount of, or kind of singing she is being asked to do. Give her a few years and then maybe she can release a CD Worth listening to. If she waits she could be great...but as is, she's just another Andrea Bocceli....or Sarah Brightman - people who try to sing but can't hold a candle to those true operatic singers (i.e. Kiri Takanawa, Renee Flemming, and Sam Ramey).

Charlotte Church is about to encounter the ugly reality that faces nearly all child prodigies at some point: she has to grow up.

15 is an awkward age for anyone, and changing vocal chords is not always conducive to the most pleasant of sounds. Evidence: much of this album.

Some prodigies survive puberty. After all, Joshua Bell is still going strong, and Franz Schubert managed to get over his childhood choirboy stardom to produce some pretty decent music.

Ms. Church wants us to begin taking her seriously, not just as a freakish little girl who can sing really well, but as a mature, accomplished future...opera singer? pop star? brassy Broadway belter? Hmm...it would seem, from the repertoire she has chosen, that she can't decide which one she wants to be. The odd assortment of songs thrown together here smacks of commericialism and overexploitation, of someone trying to squeeze the most out of her 15 minutes.

Hence, the bizarre combination of songs on this album, which attempts to cover all of these categories, with a little bit of Celtic-chic thrown in to remind us that yes, she is still in touch with her roots. Ms. Church ostensibly wants to show us that she can do it all, when in reality, she can't. And that is no tragedy. Would you really like to hear a Kathleen Battle dance album or Britney Spears doing Madame Butterfly? Let's hope not.

The problem, as many people have noted, is that she's just not ready to sing most of these songs. Most female opera singers do not hit their prime until 35 or after. Ms. Church still has 20 years to go before she can produce a passably good "Habanera". Or at least, let's hope she will, so that we can forget the tripe that's on this record. Maybe by then she will have decided what genre she wants to sing, and her voice will have held up well enough to sing it.

I visited the local music store to sample her work (will NOT purchase), and I agree completely with Music Fan from CT. Like all novelty acts, Church should stay in her homeland and perform "tribute" concerts covering the work of true artists. Better yet, she should go abroad to entertain the British soldiers serving as peacekeepers in Afghanistan, if they will have her. Then she should grow up.

I always fear for the future of musical child prodigies, especially those whose vocal gifts are taken advantage of with punishing numbers of concerts and premature recordings. Certainly, I was impressed by Miss Church as an eleven-year-old and hoped that, after an initial airing, her voice would be nurtured and held back to mature. Unfortunately, this was not to be, and just a few years later, no longer merely precocious, she runs the risk of being judged on her scanty merits. How sad it is to hear the strain in her young, thin voice as she reaches for notes she cannot dependably attain, much less sustain. The "glam" CD photo of this young lady says it all. In a sagging music industry, it offers unknowing consumers the "buy me" temptation of a pretty face and a fashionable mane of blond hair. Miss Church's CD was anything but an "enchantment." Such a pity.

...and it's a rare event that I write two contradicting reviews for one thing. But upon careful listening to this CD, and after listening again to all of Charlotte Church's other CD's, it really does seem that there is something (almost inexplicable) missing from "Enchantment."

I will say right up front that I'm NOT a singer (I am, however, an instumentalist-a pianist, to exact, so I do have somewhat of a "musical" ear), but even I could hear something that had changed for the worse in Charlotte's voice. "Tonight" from "West Side Story" seems flat-as if Charlotte is just going through a technical exercise-there is really no "rapture" in her voice that should be there in a love song like this. I agree with many people that "Carrickferges" is good; the new "wispy" sound of Charlotte's voice almost improves the song. But as the CD continues, the limitations of "the voice" really begin to show. Notes in "Papa, Can You Hear Me" and "From My First Moment" sound a little strained or simply don't gain enough momentum. And "Can't Help Loving Dat Man" is sung too tentatively, too prettily, and to be blunt, it is devoid of the "sexiness" it desparately needs.

The main redeeming quality of this CD? Interesting repertoire and fresh interpretations. Accompaniment on other Charlotte Church CDs didn't deviate much from choir/orchestra, so the ethnic percussion in "Bali Ha'i," the sulty Spanish guitar in "Habanera," and many other special touches were very welcome treats. I'll be curious to see what Charlotte Church releases next-hopefully it retains the unique accompaniment of this CD and forgoes the sometimes-lukewarm vocals.

I have followed Charlotte since she broke on to the music scene and was captivated by her first album, which lead me to believe that we had seen the birth of the next superstar. I passed, however, on her next two albums, when she did not improve on any of those technical faults in her singing, despite the fact the selections on those albums were an improvement over #1. I cannot begin to tell you how dissappointed I was when I heard this #4 album. Instead of attempting to correct her faulted singing, she drops down into a vocal range where she lacks the strength that made her unique and attempts to take on song classics from stage and screen, which even divas 3 times her age have found challenging. The result is a disaster of unprecedented proportions. The pieces attempted, which include "Tonight" "Habanera", and "The Prayer", where they run in American phenom, Josh Groban, as a duet partner in an attempt to right the ship, only show how inept she is attempting anything outside her forte. An uninformed listener would think he/she is hearing to a recital from a grade-school musical audition as opposed to a Columbia Masterwork. And, if she continues to attempt works so far beyond her ability, she should in fact limit them to the aforementioned grade-school musicals rather than attempting to pass them off to an unsuspecting public as professional works.