Seal
Soul

Campus Correspondent Review By Marion Olea,
North Central College


Recording an album consisting entirely of cover songs is a risky endeavor that when done right allows that artist to show their musical talents and give new light to such golden classics; however, if done wrong, it can fall completely flat and butcher songs dear and near to people’s hearts. Seal was ready to attempt just that with his sixth studio album, Soul (Warner), which covers R&B hits from the ‘60s and ‘70s by Sam Cooke, James Brown, Ben E. King and more.

Seal’s cover of Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” is a fantastic way to open the album. He really makes the song his own and gives it new life. “I've Been Loving You Too Long” is beautiful ballad that really shows his amazing voice while “I'm Still in Love with You” might even be better than the original and is wonderfully executed.

Where Seal fails, though, is picking songs that were not the most poignant in their decade, such as “I Can't Stand the Rain” and “Here I Am (Come and Take Me).” Seal doesn’t bring anything new to these lackluster songs and leaves the listener bored after a few seconds. Two of the biggest disappointments were “Knock on Wood” and “Stand By Me.” Amii Stewart’s version of “Knock on Wood” continues to be the best, while nothing can compare to the original “Stand By Me” by King.

Seal is a remarkable artist, but a lot of the time his voice sounded strained when attempting to cover some of these songs. Whenever an artist does a cover of someone else’s material, they need to separate themselves from the original version and make the song their own—and unfortunately for Seal, that’s where Soul failed.