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Hayley Westenra
Odyssey
 For those of you lucky hermits living in a Hayley-free world, she’s one of those new breed of popera acts. Like Andrea Bocelli and Il Divo ("The opera group" as their CDs lamely proclaims) she’s basically a cover artist. But instead of being cool, covering Def Leppard or Vanilla Ice, she covers either songs from operas or folk songs using her powers of superblandness. She’s primarily popular amongst retirees, woman who work in Salvation Army stores, and the sort of people who watch soap operas and buy sentimental Mother’s Day cards.
Karate Party acquired a free copy of this CD via the Capital Times, a local free Wellington newspaper. Their music reviewer Rex Nairn gave the album zero stars without listening to it (a strategy I heartily endorse). He also offered it to anyone who could explain why they would possibly want it. I submitted the following letter:I am writing to you as the editor-in-chief of the Wellington-based website Karate Party (www.karateparty.org). Specifically to put our case forward for receiving the Hayley Westenra album Odyssey recently reviewed by Rex Nairn. Why would we want this? Well, amongst many of our articles designed to amuse are reviews of bad albums, and I would very much like to add a review of this ridiculous concept album to our website.
Plus, I promise (not to disparage Rex Nairn) that we will actually listen to the album a minimum of one time. On preview play.
Odyssey would also make a fine companion piece to the upcoming review of our recently acquired biography of Hayley, which notably has a quarter of the pages bound upside down. The book also offers tips from Hayley’s mother on how to raise a fine daughter.
But not only should we get the album because we want to review bad music, many of us have actually read the Odyssey and would apply our knowledge of Homer’s classic to the review.
Will Hayley sing 'Smoke Gets in Your Eyes' for the blinding of the Cyclops? And how will she handle the late innings switch in tone to rampant brutality when Odysseus slaughters Penelope’s suitors? Can she possibly make that musically uplifting?
Give us the disc and all the classics majors of the world will find a review to answer these questions, and many more.
If these reasons are not enough I can offer one more. The feeling of warmth you’ll get from the knowledge that your unwanted review copy will be assigned to some other poor sucker.
Mandroid3000, via email
I naturally won this cooly contested challenge. I think this was because the other entrants genuinely wanted the CD, like this rather sad correspondent: I fear that your reviewer Rex Nairn is making the mistake of missing "the new cool" in music.
The concepts of angst, rebellion, obscenity, drugs, gratuitous violence, and so on are now utterly played out, spent forces, and audiences are benumbed by them that no excess has the ability to "shock" any longer. The music industry is like a nightclub owner with an audience craving wilder and wilder potions and entertainment, but who have long since passed the point of satiety. How to provide "shock value"? What to do?
In the circumstances, nothing could shock more than cold water and a sermon. In music, Hayley Westenra represents a new counterculture. Want to stand out, dare to be different, assert your individuality? Crank up Haylee Westenra on you ghetto blaster.
So with our URL in print, a free CD, and victory over a madman I realised that the sucker I mentioned in the letter was going to end up being me. Not relishing the task I got cozy, put the CD in my discman (seeing no reason to bother anyone else in the house with it), and put the TV on mute. What follow are the notes I took during that time (edited for clarity and to make myself sound smarter).
Track 1 – Prayer
This is bad Enya. Well, Enya’s already bad, but this is worse. Unbearable Celtic new agey rubbish. The lyrics are junk like ‘Close your weary eyes" and "Angel’s unfolding arms". There’s a cheesy acoustic guitar and string section, which swells up in a futile attempts to wring emotion from the listener. Hayley’s voice at times verges on a wicked witch. When she sings "Beautiful dreams will come true" I felt quite scared, she’s kind of like the nutty one from Shakespeare’s Sister. And worst of all the song is so damn slow. I don’t know how she can even keep her interest long enough to get through the unforgivable 4 minutes 20 seconds.
Track 2 – Never Saw Blue
Any hopes that the tempo would pick up on song 2 are immediately dashed by a mawkish piano opening that’s so slow it sounds like a four year-old clumsily trying to sight read. And while Hayley may never have seen blue, she’s probably never heard blues either. How could someone who’d heard John Lee Hooker sing, in all seriousness, a song whose opening line is "I picked a flower". It continues on with sub-Hallmark lyrics. You may say, "Now Mandroid, I know this album’s going to be shit, but you’re not telling me those are real lyrics". But I swear to you those were real, and the following are genuine as well:
"So amazed,
It’s like a dream It’s like a rainbow It’s like the rain."
Piffle. Anyone can write pretty, and this is dull pretty shite. As my attention wandered it struck me that the blue she may be talking about is blue sky. Then my attention wandered again because I didn’t care.
Again, towards the end the strings swell up to try and wring emotion out of a monotonous voice and cliched lyrics. But by that point in the song the strings resembled a clapped out old car trying vainly to climb a hill.
Track 3 – Dell’Amore Non Si Sa
The weird thing about Hayley is that no matter what notes she’s singing the song sounds exactly the same. On this track she’s joined by operatic uber-hack Andrea Bocelli (I wonder if he’s a joke in Italy the way Hayley is here in New Zealand).
I think the song is supposed to be a passionate duet. But she sings in English, he sings in Italian and they sound like they recorded their parts in karaoke bars on opposite sides of the world.
Hayley dips in and out of her wicked witch voice. Bocelli sounds bored, but who can blame him (perhaps his is the most genuine emotion on the album). And, going to an empty well too many times, the strings swell yet tears fail to comes to my eyes.
No. 4 – Ave Maria
Just what the world needs, another version of Ave Maria. I guess the thinking was that four tracks in, it’s time for Hayley to bring out a showstopper. Or at least show off her vocal tricks. But again, the song is so so so slow. If you were to listen to the CD you’d thinking would be something along these lines:
Hayley "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"
You: "Mmmm Hmmm" Hayley "Veeeeeeeeee….." You "Right" Hayley: "….eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee." You "Got it" Hayley; "Mariiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii……." You: "Noted" Hayley "………aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa." You: "Ave Maria. Okay." Hayley: "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaveeeeeeeeeeeeeee." You: "Fuck this."
This actually resembles a Gregorian chant. What the hell is she trying to do? Show us that she can hit and hold notes? This is a goddam album, not a singing lesson. She just sings "Ave Maria" again and again and again, with occasional stops for the Westnera String Experience Players to piss around. A stupefying experience.
Song 5 – Both Sides Now
A Joni Mitchell cover, the chance to inject some soul into the album. But everything is so cleanly pronounced it sounds phoney. This is the sort of song best sung by someone with some real life experience. Her voice just becomes a squeaky wall of sound, and neither highs now lows come through. When she sings "I really don’t know life at all" it comes across plainly that this is because she’s 10, and hasn’t got into P or had an affair with her publicist yet. Hayley’s turned the song into the Smurfs Go Pop!. Nice work, jerk.
Song 6 – What You Never Know (Won’t Hurt You)
 The lyrics to this song (no classics) sound ridiculous sung in a faux-opera voice. Again the pace is deadening. The lyrics are basically the song’s title and "I’m Falling For You". Somehow I imagine Hayley singing this to a mirror.
Awful, repetitive, cliched lyrics. What are you expecting, Hayley? Me to be moved by this swill? Fuck off. Sounds like album filler, which I wouldn’t have thought possible a few tracks back.
Song 7 – May It Be
Back to the sort of hideous new age tripe from the first track. Not only is the song slower than any of the others, the lyrics are about an evening star, darkness falling, true hearts, lonely roads far from home, believing and finding. So boring. So boring. I’m not sure what it’s about. I don’t care. I got up to here and had fallen into such a stupor I had to take a break. This gave me time to marvel that such an astonishingly dull album existed. Could it be real. Is a gas pipe leaking in the room and I’d fallen into a torpid dream?
Song 8 – Quanta Qualia
Alas, the album was not the hallucination of a gas-filled membrane. It exists today, and insidious force that even children could buy from the local store. When children could be listening to Electric Six, the chance of them stumbling into this den of banality is truly terrifying for the future of our country.
This track is basically Ave Maria 2. Hayley sings "Quanta Qualia", and a chorus of male opera singers reply. Of course, it’s all done very slowly. This sounds like the start of a song that never gets started.
Song 9 – Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 Aria (Cantilena)
Mistaking the current popularity of world music as a call for her to sing like a retarded pigeon over strings plucked in a vaguely Latin way, Hayley then pulls out this ditty. But this is no Arturo Sandoval. It sounds like the soundtrack to bad a communist animation short. Hayley sings two different words, "Ah" and "Oh". It’s basically the previous song, but the men have wisely wandered off while she twirls around like an attention-seeking little shit. I was listening to this on my discman with the TV on in the back ground. I zoned out while watching an advert for stock car racing.
Perhaps it was the stock car racing, but I though that maybe this song could be bearable. All you had to do was fire Smurfette from singing duties, speed it up, get some maracas, some trumpets, and margaritas for all. Then this could maybe be the song they’d play over the stereo at a Latin jazz concert while the band is off having a drink and everyone’s chatting about how good that new White Stripes album is.
Song 10 – She Moves Through the Fair
The other songs stunk. This song is a monstrosity. It opens with the caterwauling sound of a piece of torture equipment called the Uillean pipes (basically bag pipes that haven’t been tuned), which introduces the caterwauling of Hayley. Fuck. Okay, I’ve said it in every song. Fuck this is so slow. I want to cry. I dream of listening to "Let’s Get Buck Naked and Fuck" by Ice T (because I’m watching Special Victims Unit on mute). Speed up!!! She’s going so slowly the words actually disintegrate into syllables. I managed to join up "La" and "ke", then gave up on the words.
A house just blew up on Special Victims Unit. We should find the brain chemistry pattern of people who like this music and blow up their houses.
I’m guessing, but I think is one of those cliched doomed love Celtic folk songs. I want no part of this, so am officially declaring myself an albino Haitian.
Song 11 – I Say Grace
A change of pace? There’s jazzy piano (in the wuss-jazz sense). Don’t expect Jimmy Smith wailing on his hammond organ. As the song develops it seems to be a humorous attempt at a gospel track. I don't know if God would appreciate lyrics like "When my baby asks "How was your day?"/I say grace" which is rampant piety far beyond what he could possibly need.
Sadly Hayley’s voice doesn’t suit gospel. It only suits singing like a dick. Get off the stage honky! Nice enunciation, prat! I’d rather listen to one of the backing singers than the headline douche we’re stuck with. The result is so unrousing it’s like hearing the Dave Matthews Band sing a Little Richard song.
Track 12 – My Heart Belongs to You
We wrap up in Yanni territory. Unimaginative love junk. So artless. She sings "the fire that we share" with the force of an empty Bic lighter. Her voice has no personality. Pathetic. Generic ass. Like a song made by people who should have nothing to do with the music business. Begone. I cast thee to an unrewarding office job. You are the music industry equivalent of Anna Geddes.
Damn. This album sucks. This is going straight to the second hand CD store. And I don’t think it actually has any link to Homer’s Odyssey whatsoever. Unless Hayley wanted to balance the world out in some twisted yin/ying way by provided the musical equivalent of the shit seagulls do on rubbish dumps to counterpoint to an epic classic.
But of course, some of you may think I’m being a bit harsh on a nice young girl. You may even think she’s smart and talented, and I’m a bitter moron who can’t handle other people’s success. Well you're wrong. She’s clearly not talented. And she’s clearly not smart, just read her clumsy plug for Unicef in the liner notes:
 I would really appreciate you taking the time to check out www.unicef.org.nz and see the great work that UNICEF is constantly engaged in trying to alleviate some of the problems facing young people around the world today…
It is a cause that as a UNICEF Ambassador I am wholeheartedly dedicated to, but we really need your support wherever you can.
Maybe she should have got an adult to read over that first. I realise it’s a low blow to hassle someone’s endorsement of UNICEF, but we’re talking about someone who uses the nickname Abbo to describe Steve Abbott, a member of her management team. Abbo. That’s almost as wrong as this album.
The lowdown
Maximum price you should pay: -$1 million Average number of listens before insanity: 3.189 CD Rack or hidden in a drawer: Hidden in a drawer Chance of CD becoming the "new cool": incalculably low Odds of CD outselling at least one good album: 100% Chance that two old people have had sex while listening to this album: 98.7% Likely religion of any young people who have had sex while listening to this album: Christian |
