Soothing sounds

Driving down Havelock Road with the radio on Lite 89.2, I chanced to hear a song I hadn’t heard in quite some time. (14 years to be precise!) It was the American ensemble “All-4-One” with their follow up ballad to their #1 release “I Sware” that was filling the air waves and something about that song made me stop in my tracks (literally) to listen harder to the strains that were emanating from my radio.

“You like romantic movies and you never will forget, how you felt when Romeo kissed Juliet. I ain’t no Casanova and I know this much is true. I ain’t holding nothing back when it comes to you”

Lyrically, there is no originality to those kinds of love songs that blabbed sweet nothings and simple promises and that I’d admit almost readily but I was amazed at the perfect harmony and beauty of balance in this song that completely blew me away! The music was totally spot on rhythm-wise, and the words were as clear as crystal. The harmonies blended so well and the pitching was near perfect. There was no shouting. Just effortless singing and I wondered at how I’d heard this song decades ago and never noticed just how pleasing to the ears “I Can Love You Like That” is!

In contrast, Boyz II Men have far superior voices, one EXTREMELY good bass singer and stronger choral singing than All-4-One. If you remember their first hit “End of the Road”, we all went gaga over that song way back in 1992 but when you think about it, isn’t it a little bit of a strain on the ears?

“This time instead, just come to my bed ..”

If you remember that line, you’d recall that it’s such an uncomfortable screech that it would make you wince. I know I certainly do! And again “I’ll Make Love To You” has a similar trend. Granted – the same tenor singer does his thing crooning away to glory which unfortunately (again) makes it a little bit of a stinger doesn’t it?

I just love the chorus singing in “On Bended knee” but the vocals on the verses sound a little like intoxicated singing with absolutely no control and the lack of tightness is stark!

Compare “I Can Love You Like That” with “I Sware” and even “I Sware” has its moments of screeching in comparison to the smooth vocals on the former of the two.

So if you ever felt like you were in need of a good four minutes of relaxation and soothing music? I have the cure for you. Give a good, hard listen to “I can Love You Like That” and you’ll find that you really hardly need to listen too hard at all! It’s true music to your ears!