This Fire

Amen Paula Cole's third release is a lesson in sticking to what you know. A trained jazz vocalist, Cole uses this studied vocal styling with great affect. Never overusing her vibrato, she breathes a unique and emotional character into each song with a well-placed whisper, unexpectedly...	Courage With her first album in eight years, there seems to be little doubt that Paula Cole is aiming to shake the Sarah McLachlan-wannabe tag that has hung with her since the days of Lilith Fair. Though she rode the alternative wave during those times to her eventual notoriety, this tim...	Harbinger Following in the footsteps of Sinéad O'Connor and Tori Amos, Paula Cole is an art-rock singer-songwriter who turns her personal wounds into songs full of facile psychologizing and strained allegory with overwrought, humorless music to match. Harbinger, the debut album from the M...	Greatest Hits: Postcards from East Oceanside GRAMMY-winner for Best New Artist in 1997, alt-rock singer-songwriter Paula Cole rose to stardom with her signature hit "Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?" from her 1996 Warner Bros. debut album This Fire. The acclaimed disc also delivered "Me" and the smash "I Don't Want To Wait,...	Surfacing There's the requisite number of gorgeously melodic and deeply heartfelt songs here--the addictive "Sweet Surrender," the Hollywood-style ballad "I Love You," the sad, profound "Angel," the flat-out spectacular "Witness." McLachlan's not prolific, but this short, bittersweet album...
A Few Small Repairs	Relish Soulful, sexy, and precisely what Bonnie Raitt would be doing today if she were young and starting out. --Jeff Bateman	Blurring the Edges File under "Angry Young Women." Following the likes of Fiona Apple and Alanis Morrisette in line for the confessional, Meredith Brooks became yet another female rocker exposing and expressing her emotions strongly. "Bitch," with its chorus ("I'm a bitch, I'm a lover, I'm a child...	Jagged Little Pill Her intensely personal lyrics grabbed the headlines, but the bravest departure here is the way Morissette's unique vocals stand naked in the mix--a technique that drives home the painful honesty of tracks like "Right Through You," "Forgiven," and "All I Really Want." Sheryl Crow ...	Pieces of You Jewel's debut album, Pieces of You, reveals a special voice--strong and focused on both the whispery verses and the hooky choruses. The recording also exposes an unfortunate tendency to present trite, hackneyed sentiments as if they were oracular visions from a young prophet to a...

WOW!
I really liked the song "Feelin' Love", first time I heard this song was on the DVD Stages by Britney Spears, where she sung this beautiful song while was doind her make-up. It's perfect! I wonder Britney do a cover of this song on her next album.

Refreshing
Not very known in France, I loved it because it's quite different from what we listen daily on the radio. My ears only disaprove one song where she really cry too much ;o)

Very good female vocalist
Paula has a great voice but I think she's doin' too much with it. I discover this lady, like many other, at the Peter Gabriel concert in 1991 (I believe). She has a beautiful voice, there is no doubt about it but sometimes, too much is not better than not enough. Paula has a superb voice range but I think it would sound better without being always at the extreme limit of it on every word she sang.

Quite extraordinary
My God, where have I been all this time? I was absolutely despairing of hearing a really great female singer songwriter, and was only aware of Paula Cole via the inevitable "Where have all the Cowboys Gone?" There have been a few ladies in the folk/rock/indie scene who have produced statements of astonishing maturity and musicality. With the antics of the dire Amy Winehouse and Kate Nash it is easy to forget this. One is unlikely to gain much musical nourishment from the sweet but irritating Lily Allen either. Majestic works of art that come to mind are "I am the Phoenix" by Judie Tzuke, "Farewell Aldebaran" by Judy Henske and Jerry Yester (see my review on Amazons)Sonja Kristina of Curved Air on "Air Cut" (see my review) and "CA Second" and a few of Grace Slick's early works with Jefferson Airplane. You could even make a case for Janice Joplin is she wasn't quite so distorted and if her ruddy band had learnt to play in tune. Then there's Joni Mitchell in a class of her own, and even dear Alanis Morrisette at times when she controls the yodelling and doesn't play harmonica. But the first three ladies, especially the beautiful Miss Tzuke, are all magical in their own way (see my review of The Cat Is Out Tour on DVD on Amazon.co.uk). I must admit that I had begun to despair of such originality. What made me buy this CD, who knows? It's is wonderful. Listening to it for the first time in my car I nearly bit my tongue at the feral screamimg in Tiger. I mean, it's just spine chilling and very very wrenching. Miss Cole's voice is dragged and pulled through gold medal Olympic gymnastics via some quite extraordinarily beautiful soprano notes. "Cowboys" is a lovely song as a mere tune, but the desperate story of the desperate marriage is actually pretty horrible. Throwing Stones is another emotional outburst and I have to say that by the time I had reached Me I had almost had enough. Paula doesn't let you go and the voice is such an extraordinary instrument. Her range is stunning and her vitriolic attacks on life and dire circumstances is quite wearing. The final three tracks on this out-and-out masterpiece offer some relief, with Hush Hush Hush (with a cameo by Peter Gabriel) the most affecting lullaby, if that is what it is, since "Lullaby" by Judy Henske on Rosebud. "I don't want to wait" is just plain lovely and Feelin' Love is heart-wrenching. Elsewhere, the interplay between voice, violins, superb bass from Tony Levine and her own keyboards is just so original. Some of these somgs make my hair stand on end. They are genuinely frightening with her cries of pain and frustration. How do you write songs like these? Where do you start? This, readers, is a talent of the first order and she says more in track one that all the new girls have said in total so far. I'd rather listen to this in a swamp than Car-Crash Winehouse droning away on a beach in Florida. Simply magnificent and real thinking music. Buy now. Trust me.

Unexpected Greatness; One Of The Best Albums With A Female Vocalist!
On October 15, 1996, Paula Cole released her sophomore album entitled "This Fire." The album, which was entirely self-produced, contains eleven solid tracks that sound like a hybrid of Alanis Morissette and Sarah McLachlan. Below, please find the rating for each song individually: Tiger - 8/10 Where Have All The Coyboys Gone? - 7/10 Throwing Stones - 9/10 Carmen - 8/10 Mississippi - 8/10 Nietzsche's Eyes - 9/10 Road To Dead - 7/10 Me - 10/10 Feelin' Love - 8/10 Hush, Hush, Hush (Featuring Peter Gabriel) - 8/10 I Don't Want To Wait - 10/10