Album Review

Paloma Faith – Do You Want The Truth Or Something Beautiful?

• 1st Oct 2009

To place Paloma Faith in a box or genre is comparable to deciphering Lady Gaga’s much-disputed gender, impossible. To speak in contemporary terms, throw in a dollop of Amy’s soul into a pot, a dash of Duffy’s melodies, boil in some of Lady Gaga’s attitude and imagination with a sprinkling of Florence and The Machine’s quirkiness and you may just create yourself Paloma. Enough to make your mouth water…

Faith delivers her debut album ‘Do You Want The Truth Or Something Beautiful?’, which went on sale September 28th preceded by new single ‘New York’ which came out in early September.

The album comes dripping in soul with a quirky and playful ambiance. The record is an echo of the half Spanish/half British singer’s former life as a magicians assistant, former burlesque dancer and ‘Agent Provocateur’ employee. All of these former jobs contribute to her sense of style, voice and presence.

The overall sound of the album is a nod to the fifties with additional blues, a backing of r’n’b and a whole lot of soul. Faith name checks Etta James, Dinah Washington, Billie Holiday and Peggy Lee amongst her idols along with more recent artists like PJ Harvey, The Noisettes and Jill Scott being a big influence.

The record contains some soaring ballads like ‘Stargazer’ and ‘My Legs Are Weak’ which is a definite highlight of the album, reminiscent of the old love songs of Nina Simone and Billie Holiday. Other notable songs include the quirky ‘Upside Down’ , the heartfelt ‘Play On’ and the boisterous ‘Smoke & Mirrors’, which I personally think should be Faith’s third single (a sure-fire hit).

Other stand-out tracks are probably the well-known singles, ‘New York’ and debut ‘Stone Cold Sober’, both still echoing around the charts.

The ultimately unique selling point of the album is the performance-esque quality of Paloma Faith. Every song and the album as a whole can be visualised as a luxurious big band performance or circus feature. The big drums, trumpets and the loud backing vocals create this highlighted presence of the petite siren.

She recently declared in an interview that “there is something on the album for everyone. It is not genre specific, it is multi-dimensional. There is classic pop, there are thoughtful songs, there is light and there is dark. It’s a journey”.

Whether you love her imaginative and unique sense of style and music or loathe her over the top presence, Faith is without a doubt unique and a breath of fresh air in the music industry today and an up and coming rival of the biggest female singers of the 21st century.