Customer Reviews

Mind Adventures

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though the world at large did not come to know des'ree until the 1994 release of "you gotta be", it was 1992's _mind adventures_ that truly established her as r&b music's reigning earth mother. songs like "mind adventures", "stand on my own ground", "average man" and "momma please don't cry" combine a folk mentality with lush vocals and r&b production, setting the stage for artists such as ambersunshower, ilene barnes and india.arie. if you enjoyed _i ain't movin'_ and _supernatural_, take a moment for a _mind adventure_.

Des'ree has one of our time greatest voices.
Des'ree voice reminds me a little of Tracy Chapman, Average Man is fantastik, Feel So High is really great, Son Of'79 is one of my favorites, Why Should I Love You is a great sad love song, Competivie World the title says it all, Laughter a great ballad song, Momma Please Don't Cry is a heartbreaking story and you could cry to it and whit Des'ree's voice makes it even better.
Buy this album trust me it's her best.

I own the UK version of this album, with the black-purple cover. This is the debut album by Des'ree, then a young black lady from England with roots in Barbados. She is best known for her 1994 hit "You Gotta Be" and indeed the album "I Ain't Movin'" which it came from was wonderful - but let me tell you, her debut album, that came before that - in 1992, is no less full of soul and energy. Her lyrics seem as deep here as they are on "I Ain't Movin' and even on "Supernatural" (1998, her third album). I read somewhere that Des'ree is no longer recording music, and that is a very sad fact for she have one of the most speical, soothing, warm and relaxing voices in the whole music-world. When you listen to De'sree singing, you can forget about the world outside and about your daily promblems. Just relax, take your time and listen to these wonderful songs in any of her CD's.
This one, however, feels speical to me since it was my introduction to Des'ree. There is one minor hit she had during 1991 - "Feel So High" and it is one of the most lovely songs she has ever recorded. Other favorites of mine here are the imaginary title-track, the sad yet honest ballad "Why Should I Love You", the soulful "Competitive World" (about the race of life and capitalism, I think), the gospel-styled "Save Me" and the exciting "Momma Please Don't Cry". All the other tracks are very good as well, and the album as a whole sounds very complete and soulful, very related to nature and earth, somehow. If I had to make a list of the ten best albums of 1992, this would be one of them, really!
If you like what you hear in "Mind Adventures", everything else she has released is highly recommended for you, including her newest (so far and I guess her last from now on until who knows when), "Dream Soldier".
Enjoy every minute of this little debut musically adventure. She became one of my best-loved famle-singer, for she is extremely talented. I hope you'll hear it also.
I still believe one day we'll get to see more Des'ree albums coming out, and if not - the ones she has blessed us with are something special to keep in the music-library.

When this album came out at the start of the 90's I'm not sure if the term neo soul was even used yet. Artists such as Terence Trent D'arby had been innovating it in the late 80's but it really didn't have a defining term. So in 1991 this young British lady dropped her first album and even for that there was something different from the start. For one her style and sound is somewhat difficult to classify. It's somewhere between acoustic soul,gospel influenced R&B and the jazzy retronuevo sound of people such as Anita Baker. That latter quality emmerges in Des'ree's husky,scaling and highly emotional voice which somehow manages to ring every last ounce of feeling from this largely self penned songs. She later described these as "songs written by a teenager" or,at the very least from the mentality of a young person who hasn't yet ventured out into an independant lifestyle just yet. And indeed the subject matter of most of these songs are very much oriented around unpreparedness. All the same between more uptempo gospel soul numbers such as "Competitive World",the title song,"Standing On My Own Ground","Son Of 79" and "Laughter" there's a sense we're dealing with a singer-songwriter with a reflective view of her situations,still somewhat bound to certain obligations but all the same not in the worldly sense and willing to take a lot of creative changes. The ballads are another matter. "Why Should I Love You","Average Man" and the heavily gospel styled rave up of "Save Me" are alternately stark,densely chorded and impassioned songs that musically as well as lyrically explore the uncertainty and expectations of a young woman facing a whole new world. This comes to a head in the similarly themes closing track "Momma Please Don't Cry",sort of a "She's Leaving Home" sung from a more first hand female viewpoint and dealing with finally venturing away from the home where "mind adventures" as it were would become more of a luxary than a given. From there it's very easy to see why her next album I Ain't Movin' would be the next logical step for her. This album may not have the emmediate hit potential and it's explorative lyrical nature doesn't necessarily "keep it real" as much as the urban R&B concerns of the following years would demand but all the same for this artist it's as fitting a beginning as one could imagine.

great cd! its very energetic and also speaks very wise words in the cd to remember for life, especially "you gotta be". definetly something to have at home, depending on your mood to listen to it.