Customer Reviews

My Beauty

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

 

 

Apparantly this album sold less then 500 copies..I am at a loss to understand why, unless the public are as homophobic as the newspapers. I bought this album as a 16 year old troubled teen and it has honestly helped me through many a crisis. 'The Greatest Love Of All' allowed me to accept myself as an outsider..the coda of 'Concrete And Clay' which informs us 'You are everything to me, I love you' brought a glow to my heart, while on 'I Can't Tell The Bottom From The Top', Kevin appeared to share the same world weariness as my own. Then last October my father died and Kevin's version of 'You'll Never Walk Alone' (one of my father's favourites) was there to accompany my sorrow and grief. If the great man never makes another record then he went out on a masterpiece of emotion and melancholy in equal measures and I'm sure I won't be the only one to thank him for that.

Poor confused guy! It seems he's had a hard time for a while. The inside cover has a paragraph about how Kevin came about doing these cover songs...the way he 'sings'...he REALLY expresses his true feelings. It's wonderful. You really feel for him. Starting with "The Greatest Love of all" - where you can feel he's finding/found the truth about himself. My favourite, "Concrete and Clay" - so alive..."Can't tell the bottom from the top", "This Guy's in Love", "Daydream believer", all sung in Kevins true rustic/raspy style. The album made me think, falling deep into his thoughts. What's going on in his head? What ever it is, I hope this album bought him much pleasure in making it as I do listening to it!

Kevin Rowland is an incredibly brave man. After years of drug abuse, poverty, and a career in the dustcan, "My Beauty" was supposed to have represented a triumphant return to the music business. Unfortunately, due to his sartorial choice of the moment it turned into a regrettable laughing-stock.

The record is a spirited selection of covers, songs which Rowland claims helped him through the dark days. It is art as therapy, which doesn't always amount to good (or easy) listening, especially when the therapy sounds to have only recently begun. Particularly disturbing and disruptive is Rowland's tendency to change the lyrics to suit his 'healing' view of the world.

My Beauty allegedly sold less than 500 copies.

I just love Kevin Rowland. He took some very crappy/sappy/goofy songs and made them interesting and put a lot of feeling into them. It slightly disturbs me that he would listen to most of the songs on this CD, much less find them life altering, but this proves that I would love anything he sings.

I'm one of the 500 who bought this originally. The Uncut Magazine reviewer stated that this was what he wanted to hear every night before he went to bed or something like that, so I bought the import. Not what I was expecting. It has the feel of someone who understand what "going off the rails" really means. Witness the cover.

However, it is a brilliant piece of work and is easily one of the most personal works ever recorded, even if they're all covers and it sounds like Kevin Rowland is singing karaoke. Deeply personal as in Plastic Ono Band, Blood on the Tracks, Berlin, anything by Richard Thompson, etc. It has something 99% of the music available today doesn't have--real heart and soul.

"I Can't Tell the Bottom From the Top" will break your heart. Try to ignore his lyrical embellishments on "Long and Winding Road" and some others.

Well, first of all, every Dexy's fan must have liked Kevin Rowland anguish voice in the past; he used to sing highly, spoken lowly and even laughed sometimes, as in "Till I belive in my soul". Now, trying desesperateley proving he's alive, he raises from the dead with a COVER SONGS ALBUM. It seems that every singer or band of the decade has recorded an Accoustic or a cover song album, and Kevin waited the last year of the millenium to give the world HIS album. I wouldn't say it's a bad album. Altough he recorded some famous songs ("The long and winding road", "This guy's in love with you" and "You'll never walk alone") he shows us some surprises, such as "I'm changing" and "I can't tell the bottom from the right". But what's the reason for "The greatest love of all"? Anyway, I liked the record,maybe because it's been a long time since we don't hear new songs in Kevin's original voices. But be aware: the photos are really kitsch, beginning with the cover (Kevins as a travesti) and ending with Kevin wearing angel wings. Now let's hope he decide to join Dexys Midnight Runners again.