Albums

Rayne - Between Heaven And Earth

Bill Cummings 18/07/2005

Rating: 1/5

A native of Australia, Sydney, born Rayne (Fiona Shaw) has seemingly a record company exec's idea of a perfect CV (how dreadfully careerist eh?) Her experience in the media is diverse to say the least having modelled for Chanel, trained in and taught Jazz, Tap and modern dance and starred in music videos including one with poor old Michael Jackson. According to the press release she even wrote a column in psychic magazine "Its fate", yes the alarm bells were ringing in my head, before I even put this CD on too.

According to her biog her new album 'Between Heaven and Earth' is "The culmination of many years of determined effort, hard work, and enthusiasm means it is time for the heavens to open and quench the musical world. Let it Rayne. Let it Rayne. Let it Rayne."(ed: arf wasn't that a song by East 17?) Anyway where the enthusiasm is I don't know maybe she lost it in one of her meditation sessions. Because this record is devoid of any merit whatsoever. Like Madonna's "Frozen" period gone wrong, it resembles the kind of sheened Radio 2 banality that infests the world of music today. Imagine the most laughably poor Eurovision act crossed with The Corr's and your someway to understanding why this disk is a waste of plastic.

The opening gambit of "City Lights" is pop disco pap. Really who would choose to listen to this stuff? The lyrics have been culled from some cheesy pop thesaurus "Get on down/Feel the beat/In your feet/In the heat", while "Rain Dance" sounds like the poorer cousin of Madonna's aforementioned Frozen - ethnic beats bolted on to whispery vocals.

To say this is awful would be to say it engenders that much emotion in the listener; totally forgetable wall paper music that's devoid of originality, passion or any kind of tunes would be more apt. That this kind of MOR pop exists is kind of disgusting, ok good Pop when done well can but exhilarating but this kind of bland background music is so lacking in any kind of interest that its hard to even care if it exists or not. My copies in the bin anyway.