A pop album drawn from a musical could be off-putting to some. Images of Glee spring to mind or a tweenypop version of Idina Menzel – both of which seem quite a departure from Sara Bareilles’ hugely popular hits "Love Song", "Gravity" or most recently, "Brave".
But for her fourth studio album – a follow up to 2013’s The Blessed Unrest – Bareilles has taken tracks from the upcoming musical, Waitress, set to hit Broadway in April 2016, for which she wrote both the music and lyrics. The result is a bit of a pick ‘n’ mix: I know I will play my favourite couple of songs on repeat until I know all the words, but others I will ignore completely.
It is soft, warm and enveloping, like the comfy red velvet seats of an auditorium
"She Used To Be Mine" is undoubtedly the most downloadable track of the album. Ballady and homespun, you don’t need any knowledge of the musical to appreciate Bareilles’ rich velvety sway lamenting an imperfect someone you used to be, musing on reflections of the past to a melodic piano and heart-twanging base. It is soft, warm and enveloping, like the comfy red velvet seats of an auditorium.
However, some of the other songs seem to be more specific to the characters and plot of the musical – "Everything Changes" is confusing without the conjoining story and the title track, "What’s Inside", stirs heartfelt domesticity and fragile emotions into kitchen-baking, but "Lulu’s Pie Song" is a bit too heavy on the icing sugar and butter. "When He Sees Me" is very much a musical theatre number – an overly punctuated inner monologue.
Overall, Songs from Waitress is very easy listening with a few big hitters. The music is intelligently written and the lyrics are intimate and witty, if perhaps too full of story to make sense without seeing the actual musical.
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