Word: diva
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...definition, a diva is a rampaging female ego redeemed only in part by a lovely voice. It's hard to imagine why anyone would want to be one, but a new generation of female talent appears to be weirdly enamored of the word and the idea...
Faith Hill is one of the new would-be divas. She's the country one--the sweet blond married to fellow sweet blond Tim McGraw. Hill's previous album, Breathe, sold 7 million copies, which gives her pretty good diva credentials. She's popular, but her new album, Cry (Warner Bros.), proves she doesn't really understand...
...instrument, but it's smooth and confident and relaxed. On Cry, that ease is absent for frustratingly long periods. The album opens with Free, a nice enough tune about overcoming your demons that Hill characteristically undersings. The first sign of trouble is the title track, a big, diva-ish song that she strains to pull off. It works because the hook is a winner--"Could you cry a little/Lie just a little"--but Hill seems very ill at ease when she's required to blow away the swirling chorus at the heart of the song...
When Hill goes for diva moments, the songs collapse beneath her. Beautiful has spoken-word verses that recall late-night Cinemax soft-core and the chimerical cliches of Bonnie Tyler. "I love the way you hold me with your eyes/Hold me so tight that I can't move/It's like everything I've ever known is a lie, and you're the simple truth." Beautiful ends with one of those cheap "Take it up a notch!" key changes, as does Unsaveable, the song that follows. Hill's longtime producers, Byron Gallimore and Dann Huff, have done her no great favors...
...Michael J. Fox, Britta Phillips was getting paid to be the singing voice of Jem. The current bassist for the band Luna—fronted by Harvard’s own M. Dean Wareham ’85—looks back on her fast times as a singing diva on the USA Network and reflects on Jem’s ongoing influence...