Album Review - Anna Vissi's Paraxenes Eikones (Strange Images)

As a highly anally retentive person, I am obsessed with quantifying things - records, clothes, jobs, men... :-P. Seriously, I have thought that it would be a good idea to post a few album reviews (no more than one each month), just to offer an overview of some of the albums I'll mention as I post, which I hope will prompt you to buy them. So here it is, my first attempt at boring you to death! ;-D



Hastily produced during 2003 to compensate for the somewhat mediocre performance of her previous album, 2002's X (Chi), the double album Παράξενες Εικόνες (which contains a total of 25 songs) was hailed as Anna Vissi's triumphal return to the top of the Greek and Cypriot charts.

However, had she ever really fallen from the higher echelons of the success and popularity ladder? The answer is an emphatic no. Yet and still, it would be important to notice that Anna's favouring of extreme diversity during the most recent part of her career was bound to disconcert her public at one point or another; peculiar experiments and a love for musical fusion might be exciting from an artistic point of view, but they don't really seem to blend in well with commercial viability. Simply put, Vissi's ambition might have been her own (very partial) undoing. Still, it is understandable that for a musician of her stature, accustomed to immediate and immeasurable success for more than a decade, 'moderate success' is little more than an euphemism for 'crass failure'.



This time around, the musical diversity is accompanied by professional diversity. Nikos Karvelas, Anna's ex-husband and composer, writer, arranger and producer of the vast majority of her material (as well as most of her greatest hits), gracefully leaves space for other songwriters to lend their songs to the album. Even though at eight songs he is by far the major contributor, the restrictions to the material he is allowed to give are conversely liberating for Karvelas - some of his contributions manage to be innovative as they are emotionally charged, but the rest are mostly perfect pop confections that seem to be made to rapidly sail their way to the top of the charts (his speciality :-) ). The rest of the collection is, however, no inferior in any way to Karvelas' truly excellent offerings.



The first album is more geared towards international audiences, with an abundance of dance numbers, exaggerate Adult Oriented Rock ballads and faux-R&B numbers. Swedish team Alex Papaconstantinou and Peter Cartriers take control in the album's first two danceable tracks, delivering an atmospheric and cold dance anthem in the enormous hit Είσαι (later released worldwide as Call Me), which uses Vissi's moans along with volin progressions to fill in the spaces between melodic segments. However, their skills are better seen in the beautiful faux-R&B song Εγώ, Μωρό Μου, which incorporates alternating percussive samples over the song's bass line, and beautiful flute ornamentation.

Εγώ, Μωρό Μου - Ego, Moro Mou/I, My Darling

Το Τρένο - To Treno/The Train

The rest of the first album flows gracefully between genres, meeting its pinnacles in the majestic folk epic Το Τρένο (1st single and massive success from the album), which rivals the best power ballads ever written in sheer dramatism, and the bombastic dance number Έχω Πεθάνει Για Σένα (7th single of the album), which narrates a person's descent into alcoholism-induced suicide over aggressive beats and distorted electronic effects. Still, the highlights of the album are the bizarre electroclash of Ξαφνικά/Suddenly (written by Peter Lord and V. Jeffery Smith, the team behind Paula Abdul's early 90's success), and the pensive, dark ballads that open and close the album, which include the disturbing title track.

Έχω Πεθάνει Για Σένα - Echo Pethanei Gia Sena/I've Died For You

Είσαι - Eisai/You Are (Prodigal Son remix)



The second album is less commercial, even if not less diverse. From the first guitar notes of opener Ψυχεδέλεια/Spiritual Revelation to the last beats of the Prodigal Son remix of the spectacular Είσαι, the listener is taken through a journey of musical discovery through diverse types of Greek folk, the majestic Φεύγω with its watery effects and guitar solos (by far one of the best songs in both albums), Middle Eastern-influenced acoustic rock, the Urban mid-tempo of Μωβ/Mauve and the big-band-meets-Middle-Easten-folk-and-swing number Βατερλώ, also one of the most interesting tracks in both albums.

Φεύγω - Fevgo/I'm Leaving

Βατερλώ - Vaterlo/Waterloo

Thus, without further ado (and hoping my first attempt at a review wasn't too great an irritation ;-) ), I present you with the selection I've made. but before, please go buy this album here. Enjoy!