CD Review: Let the Music Play – Karen Mason

LET THE MUSIC PLAY – Karen Mason (Zevely Records – Available online)

Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩ 

This is an album of two halves. A ‘good’ half and a ‘better’ half.

It starts with a track called ‘Let the Music Play’, which I had to listen to a couple of times as I thought Karen Mason’s voice didn’t sound very strong throughout. I was a little worried that the rest of the album would be the same but I am happy to report that it only appears to be on this track.

The next track ‘On Broadway/Broadway Baby’ falls flat. Apart from it being a very obvious pairing on paper, in actuality it is very boring and I just wanted to skip the track, which I would have done if I weren’t reviewing the album.

However, with the next track ‘Stepping Out With My Baby’ we get the Karen Mason that we expect – full voiced and giving it everything. ‘He Touched Me’, ‘Time’ and ‘Talking to the Moon’ follow and they are very pleasant to listen to and bring us to ‘For Good’ from Wicked on which she is accompanied by Stephen Schwartz himself on piano.

This and the following track ‘Mr Monotony’ are the highlights of the album for me. The Schwartz song could have been written for her and suits her distinctive voice while ‘Mr Monotony’ brings out her bluesy side, which is beautiful.

Just a personal opinion but ‘Don’t Rain On My Parade’ doesn’t do anything for me. I’m not a great fan of the song itself and so it would need something pretty spectacular to be done with the arrangement for it to have any effect on me.

‘When You Wish Upon a Star’, ‘Is There Anybody Out There?’, ‘Jerusalem’ and ‘We Can Be Kind’ again fall into the ‘pleasant’ category only to be followed by ‘From a Distance’ and ‘In My Life’ which do not stand out for any reason at all. The album, though, finishes with a really strong track ‘We Never Ran Out of Love (We Just Ran Out of Time)’ which, in the current climate, becomes even more poignant than it ever did beforehand.

All-in-all I was actually quite disappointed with the album. I think there could have been more imagination shown in the choice of the tracks and also some of the arrangements but, apart from track one, Mason’s voice shines through.

Nick Wakeham