CD Review
Artist:  Shirley Bassey
Album Title:  Get the Party Started
Label:  Universal Music Canada
Released:  March 18, 2008 

3 Stars

Reviewed by: Darren Paul (Edmonton Correspondent - Canada) 

The Welsh Dame has given over her big hits to several hot contemporary producers. The idea that there are ways to develop visceral impact beyond string swells seems to be lost on most of them. This album looks back over Shirley Bassey's career and modernizes several of her hits with back tracks pulled from many genres, in addition to dropping in a couple of brand new recordings. The result is a tension between old and new that is not broadly successful.  

Styles heard on this album include an industrial riff with distorted guitar in Big Spender, a reggae beat colliding against brass and strings in I (Who Have Nothing), and a light ditty reminiscent of I Can See Clearly poorly matched against the pining for a lost love lyrics of What Now My Love. With the latter as the most disturbing example, there are many places on the album where songs were orchestrated without a thought to context or storytelling, and even Bassey's singing falls into the same trap in failing to access the lyrics. 

The album opens with a full orchestra swelling replete with electronic pulses, suddenly backing off in intensity. From the void commands Shirley Bassey's tense powerful voice "Get this party started on a Saturday night..." Exploding into a dance hall beat Get The Party Started may get you on your feet, but the Dame's warbling voice doesn't suit the style. Her singing strikes as commanding rather than inviting and suggestive in Big Spender. Several songs in the front half are meant to grab your attention and do so through a build in the intensity of voice, but the build is a mechanical growth into yelling accompanied by generic string swells rather than a real build of emotion and grates more than grasps you.

Where this disc finds some more success is with the middle songs. Here the producers have strayed from the full classical orchestra and engaged jazz instrumentation and a drunken lounge feel. By trying to accomplish less they really do more in transporting the listener into the head of the singer, as she engages in a sexual encounter (Can I Touch You There) and the schizophrenic mindset of Hello. Still these are lounge songs and strike me as great for background listening but a little boring for active participation.  

There is a hit on the album however, and that is The Living Tree. In the midst of contemporization of classics, there is one song that has been written originally for this album. Shirley Bassey might be best known for her singing the title tracks for three Bond movies, and this song sounds ready to be a fourth. It starts with a lot of motion, the pace of percussion is like the scenery flying by as you blitz down a highway in a hot ride.  It is unashamed of being epic and when the strings come together with guitar to push the sound farther rather than competing in style the result is a flying single. There is even a guitar solo!

In the end, Shirley Bassey's singing is of a particular style and does not transfer well into our modern pop repertoire, but remains effective when she refuses to stray from her turf. This CD is worth getting a hold of as the experiments undertaken are interesting to listen to, but may not find their way onto your shuffle list. 

1. Get The Party Started - 3:59
2. Big Spender - 3:21
3. I (Who Have Nothing) - 3:43
4. This Is My Life - 4:22
5. Slave To The Rhythm - 6:30
6. Can I Touch You There - 5:36
7. What Now My Love - 2:50
8. Kiss Me Honey Honey Kiss Me - 4:36
9. Hello  - 4:56
10. You Only Live Twice - 4:44
11. The Living Tree - 4:58
12. Where Is The Love - 5:34
13. I Will Survive - 3:48