Ralphy's C.D. Reviews

Review date 25-01-2000: Anouk - C.D. Urban Solitude

"Urban Solitude" is the second album of the fast rising Dutch rock singer Anouk (Teeuwe). She was discovered by Barry Haye and George Kooymans, the frontmen of the greatest Dutch rock band ever the Golden Earring (a.o. "Radar love" and "Twilight zone"), who are like Anouk from The Hague. They let Anouk play as their opening act and wrote her first single "Mood indigo" and gave her a good start that way. "Mood indigo" did allright, but wasn't the big breakthrough everyone was hoping for. That breakthrough came when she released her second single "Nobody's wife" in august 1997. This song, written by herself and her good friend Bart van Veen, immediately became a major hit in Holland and later also the rest of Europe. She then released her debut album "Together alone", which also reached multi-platinum status in Europe and she scored 2 more hits with "It's so hard" and "Sacrifice". After that success she also gave a lot of support to other Dutch rock bands like Billy The Kid and Kane, with whom she collaborates on her new album.

I myself bought "Together alone" based on my impression of "Nobody's wife" and though the album isn't bad, it didn't meet up to my expectations based on that song. I felt that on that album Anouk tried to prove too hard how good a singer she was and that the music behind her hadn't been taken care of enough. Therefore I wasn't to eager to buy her new album "Urban Solitude". After I saw a 2 meter session (a Dutch TV music show where artists play live, mostly without an audience, sometimes unplugged) with Anouk presenting some of her new songs I got a copy anyway and this time I wasn't disappointed at all. "Urban Solitude" rocks from start to finish and everything I believed was lacking on "Together alone" is plenty present on this CD.

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The album contains 13 songs of which 11 are written by Anouk in collaboration with Bart van Veen. "U being u" she wrote together with Ricardo Pronk of Billy The Kid, alas it isn't one of the bettter songs on the album in contrary to the song that Dinand Woesthoff of Kane wrote for this album. "My best wasn't good enough" is one of the beauties on "Urban solitude". It is a duet, Anouk and Dinand sing it together and once again I want to say that the debut album of Kane "As long as you want this" is coming out in a few days and based on the songs I heard so far it promises to be very good. But back to the CD at hand. That I like(d) the first single "R u kiddin' me" is no surprise if you've ever visited my Music Site before. It isn't a coincidence that "R u kiddin' me" ended up being number one in my Top 1999, but in between the other songs of "Urban solitude" it doesn't even strike out in an exceptional manner. The second single "The dark" is maybe the most powerfull rocker on the album. It had already been introduced to the Dutch public at the 1999 TMF-awards (TMF is kinda a Dutch MTV). It has a very small rap part, but that doesn't even bother me and I'm absolutely anti-rap. At first it sounded a bit similar to the opening song of the album "In the sand", but after more hearing them more often both songs are different, but have a similar powerfull feel.

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The music on this album has been worked over very well and on the title song "Urban solitude", maybe the best song on it, they even use a string section. Lyrically Anouk has also grown and the song "It wasn't me" is emotional in its description of a daughter accusing her runaway father and it's very intense. I don't know if "It wasn't me" is, but "Michel" is autobiographic. This sensitive ballad is about Anouk reminiscing about her first love. The other ballad "Tom Waits" is even better. An ode to the American songwriter, it is about a dream in which Anouk shares the "downtown train" (Tom Waits' biggest hit) with this singer/actor. "Don't" and "Cry" are also worth a mention, especially the latter which deals with a man that is afraid to show his emotions. There should also be a bit of criticism. At times Anouk still exaggerates a bit, she mostly sings more modest and controlled and the CD benefits greatly of this, but at times like in the start of "Body brain" her singing is somewhat overdone. "Body brain" doesn't suffer too much and remains a good song about the narrow-mindedness of some people. There is one song left I didn't mention yet and that is the closer "My friend". This song is my least favorite, not bad, but not great either. The album "Urban solitude" is definitely worth recommending and I rate it with a 8.4 .

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