The Colour of My Love

This review was written from a prog rock perspective...

Corporate music production being what it is these days, a full list of credits for this album would be rather lengthy, so I have just picked out those names perhaps of more interest to prog fans. David Foster—not Jon Anderson's band mate in The Warriors, but the other one (who did also work with Anderson many years later)—produced and arranged "The Power of Love" and "The Colour of My Love"; produced "When I Fall in Love"; and played keys on "The Power of My Love" and piano on "The Colour of My Love". Pete Sinfield wrote the lyric for "Think Twice". Christopher Neil, of Mike & the Mechanics, produced "Think Twice", "Refuse to Dance" and "I Remember L.A." Tony Colton co-wrote "I Remember L.A." (with Richard Wold). If it is the same Colton, he also produced Yes's Time and a Word album. Enough of the trainspotting...

Pete Sinfield has had a fair amount of commercial success since going freelance. Cher's "Heart of Stone" was his previous big earner, but Celine Dion's "Think Twice" may have topped it. The music is by Andy Hill, inventor of Bucks Fizz and a frequent collaborator with Sinfield, giving another artificially hyper-emotive ballad belted out by Celine Dion—an AOR music executive's dream.

Christopher Neil opts for a slightly sparser production on "Think Twice" than some of the other producers on the album, giving a slight '80s synth-pop feel I also hear with Mike & the Mechanics. This is a wise move, leaving Dion's voice central and, with a little suspension of disbelief, you can get quite absorbed in Dion's heart-wrenching style on the song. That same style is served less well by the production and arrangements on some of the other songs: "When I Fall in Love", "The Power of Love", "The Colour of My Love", "The Aubergine of My Love" :), "Just Walk Away", "Only One Road" etc. If you like romantic AOR slush, they are as good as any, but nothing special. The songs also suffer a dearth of inventive lyrics, with Sinfield no exception. His faux rhyme of 'This is getting serious/Are you thinking 'bout you or us' in the chorus of "Think Twice" still annoys me.

However, away from Dion's better-known heuristic, we also have songs owing more to Europop or even disco. While some are still ballads at heart (like "No Living Without Loving You"), a more acerbic vocal and lyrical style is to be heard on tracks like "Misled", "Lovin' Proof" or "Real Emotion" (the last two by the ubiquitous Diane Warren). Perhaps I am splitting hairs between one form of AOR and another, but I prefer the more sassy character portrayed by these songs. Occasionally interesting keyboard arrangements help as well. "Refuse to Dance" shows some novelty: lush with strings, yet Neil's production manages to avoid a Phil Spector-effect. A chorus led by the backing vocals adds to a third person feel to the song, rather than the typical first person approach.

"I Remember L.A." is one of the less successful pieces. There's little really to the song beyond a maudlin verse; not enough to carry the whole piece. I guess that the co-writer, Tony Colton, is the same Tony Colton who produced Time and a Word, but I do not know for sure. In 'Yesstories', Colton is described as a singer, a friend of Anderson's who had never produced an album before.

Henry Potts, 17 Sep 96; revised 29 Aug 05

In response to the review, Sinfield later commented that he was rather proud of "serious"/"you or us".

Originally posted to rec.music.progressive, alt.music.yes.

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