Christina & Fearn - You Are The One (1999)

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Cicice
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Christina & Fearn - You Are The One (1999)

Post by Cicice »

Christina & Fearn - You Are The One (1999)

[youtube-https]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gk5La9e74k[/youtube-https]

I thought of practicing reviewing and they're generally very long but I thought of giving it a practice, especially when I feel a certain music is worth discussing. Reviewing a Hed Kandi compilation on Amazon aside, "You Are The One" is marked as the first album I am reviewing.

This album is for the dance popheads who loves a good pop hooks and will be in for a treat if they also love a good melody! I don't know much about them other than I know Christina Aguilar (yes, not Aguilera) is quite a successful singer in Thailand and English singer Sarah Jane Fearn contributed on this album and sang with Christina and her Thai hits in English. I believe they were both just singers (maybe writers) but I reckon they may not have played the instruments or produced the songs. On the vamp looking album cover, Christina is the left woman in the yellow light and Fearn is the right woman in the blue light.

Intro:
This is a childhood album I remember well but have not listened to in over 16 years. My mum brought this along with other Thai music but since this and Tata Young ("I Believe") album were sang in English, they were a go to for me whilst I was getting comfy with English music. During when I was little, I enjoyed this album but not everything sat well ("Eternal" and "Brightheart"), since the music sounds more like music for adults rather than a teen bubblegum pop like "I Believe" (our Asian Britney Spears!), though they weren't explicit. Some of the compositions sounded dark ("Eternal" and "Doctor Love") but I knew I prefer it over "I Believe" with fascination because of the dance melodies.

One of the main reason I haven't listened to the album for awhile was because the disc eventually got scratched and damaged and effected some of the songs and its doesn't seem like a worldwide album I could find and purchase again on internet shopping. Luckily, someone upload the album 2 years ago (god bless them!) and its not only nostalgia or that I got older to understand the theme a little better that made me enjoy the album even more but I was impressed by how much melodies a lot of the tracks contained and how well it worked to make a lot of the songs worth finishing, especially the electric guitars.

Further reviewing:
I do believe that this is a worthy contribution for those who loves a good dance pop album, regardless of cheesy lyrics, moderately average vocals but can't help but surrender to a good earworm in just ONE HIT! If you can get through Carly Rae Jepsen's "Emotion", Lady GaGa's "The Fame", Selena Gomez "Star Dance" or The Asteroid Galaxy Tour's "Fruit", you'll manage to get through these.

Lyrical Content:
The lyrics of the song are mainly based around a one relationship love songs, love pleading or love betrayal a lot of the time in a adult contempary manner. It's like a small blend of All Saints, Sophie Ellis Bextor, Madonna or a few other Smooth R&B group like Honeyz drag out into a Dance Rock and Techno Pop territory. There's nothing groundbreaking about the lyrics but they're not overly corny bad. It's strenghth lies within the hooks.

Vocals:
The duo's vocal aren't too groundbreaking either but they're still moderately good.
If I had to make a comparison, Christina's voice reminds me of Natalie Appleton from All Saints or anime voice actress who processes a soft velvety jazz adult voice and Fearn has a bit of a higher, younger nasal, eurodance voice like Lolly, Whigfield, Nicola Roberts or the voice actress for Druisilla and Anastacia from Cinderella.

Although there's a small touch of voice effects, what I like most was that their voices remains natural throughout the album and doesn't use too much effect to point where the vocals becomes too irritating, Charli XCX should take note, especially from something that came out in 1999 (wink!).

Compositions:
The composition to me along with the catchy hooks are by far the album's biggest strength and pretty straight forward alot of the time. Say you've noticed how cheesy the lyrics are getting from the album's early start, you'll eventually be distracted by how confident the instrumentations are like how the synths, beats and pianos flows together, especially whenever the catchy 80s electric guitar riffs starts kicking in "Eternal", "You've Been Cheating", "Brightheart" and "Open Hands".

Evidently, the breakdown from "You've Been Cheating" is what I love about listening to certain music. A New Jack Swing beat with a mushy synth line and Fearn's harmony, followed by stern piano keys and another overblown powerhouse from Fearn after the first one that came after a quick electric guitar appearance. I could say the same for the extended version of "Doctor Love" but for me, "You've Been Cheating" won this one.

The composition definately bears a strong resemblance to an 80s and 90s Madonna music. "Call Me Back" and "Who Is She?" has the early house dance beats Erotica has. "Eternal" has the "Like A Virgin" synth line and an electric guitar sound you've heard from "Burning Up", "Fantasic Love" has a techno background that sounds familiar from LFO, Madonna and Bjork in the early 90s and "Doctor Love" definately has that "I Feel Love" rhythm, especially the breakdown from the extended version. But to be honest, I still never find alot of Madonna's hits THAT catchy! Her songs are great, but earworm wise, a lot of her hooks lacked something. Christina & Fearn (along with Lady GaGa, Carly Rae Jespen, Eliza Doolittle and The Atseroid Galaxy Tour), along with their other production teams did something with their hooks and the songs' hooks worked like a roundabout, especially when the bridge from "Eternal" ('Gonna make it better..') kicks in the second time after a complicated structure.

The album may sound a bit dated but it's sort of futuristic in some way. Unless Dance Rock blended with Synth Pop / Synth Wave was done before 1999, say Depeche Mode or other overlooked Asian acts, the songs like "Doctor Love" sounds quite ahead of Girls Aloud, The Veronicas and dare I say, LCD Soundsystem and "Call Me Back" and "Back To You For Good" sounds slighty ahead of the sound many Europop acts that follows in the 2000s like Nu Virgo (https://youtu.be/Sy7YGlbYy5s)! Reminds me a little bit of The Hex Girls from Scooby Doo, a cartoon band who were also presented in 1999 but less vampy and more dancey!. Either way, I'd take these dated melodies over many pop compositions from 2010s and 2020s any day!


Conclusion:
I wouldn't have made a review this long if I wasn't impassionate about it. But those for those who misses pop music that sounded natural and has a lot of rhythms to it, this album is a worthy must! You'll probably start thinking that, if you couldn't help but appreciate the compositions.
It's may be 18 days before Christmas but why wait then, when you could just enjoy this now? - especially before the album gets taken down! Better reason to download it on MP3 if you enjoyed it cause like I said, this album is close to being unpurchasable on the internet! So when it's gone, it might remain gone. I haven't manage to make a favourite debut album lists but I assume this count as a debut for Fearn, so therefore this album has potential to come close to being a Top 10 favourite debut (along with Asteroid Galaxy Tour's "Fruit") and perhaps, a Top 10 favourite 90s album of mine. But do you like it?

Lastly:
Future Nostalgia, The Bible Of Pop?
Teenage Dream, Pop Perfection?
Fuck off! You Are The One is the real deal compared to them two combined!

Merry Christmas and you're welcome, Project Termina! 😉
By the way, this is our Asian Britney Spears - Tata Young! My sister still loves her 😄 https://youtu.be/yU5m4M1x8vQ

9/10.
Last edited by Cicice on Sat Feb 25, 2023 12:18 pm, edited 11 times in total.
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Re: Christina & Fearn - You Are The One (1999)

Post by ProjectTermina »

Wow, Cicice, this is a great recommendation for me. Not just because it's a girly nineties dance album of the sort I listened to in my mom's car as a kid, but because it's incredibly difficult to find information on it, and I almost certainly would never have found it if you hadn't recommended it to me specifically. I like this album a lot. I really love the sax on "You Are the One". I almost didn't notice the Donna Summer sample on "Doctor Love," I love that too. One thing that particularly fascinates me: there's this melodic motif that I first heard in "Flavor of the Weak" by American Hi-Fi (2000), that I later heard in "The Outside" by Taylor Swift (2006), that also appears in "Call Me Back" (1999)! See if you can hear it: do ti do so, do ti do la...
Another interesting thing is that I can barely find any information about "Fearn," aka Sarah Jane Fearnley. According to this page, she's apparently been doing background singing work since the mid-90s and mostly stayed out of the spotlight, except for this one album with Christina Aguilar. The only press I could find about her was in Billboard magazine, August 7, 1999, in a piece about this album.

One thing to note:
Cicice wrote: Wed Dec 07, 2022 11:33 am I wouldn't have made a review this long if I wasn't impassionate about it.
I think the word you're looking for is "impassioned" or "passionate," either of which means "with emotion." "Impassionate" means "without emotion." English is a dumpster fire of a language. lol

Now listening to Thai Britney, Tata Young. I see the comparison for sure. I am liking this a lot so far too, especially the song transitions.
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Re: Christina & Fearn - You Are The One (1999)

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HOLY CRAP! I swear down my ears pricked up and almost had a mini heart attack when I gave "Flavour Of The Weak" and "The Outside" a listen. The singing motif on two lines from both verses ("She paints her nails and she don't know" / "She'll wash her, his dirty clothes") ("I didn't know what I would find" / "I know I didn't read between the lines") are exactly alike to "Call Me Back" before they changed it up with the lines after them. Although I'll never know the music Taylor and American Hi-Fi listens to, with "You Are The One" being an album that's far from being internationally known - I doubt they would know about "Call Me Back" to sing the motifs on purpose. But between the two, the verses on "The Outside" sounds too much like to "Flavour Of The Weak" without much difference. Great observation, ProjectTermina!

About comparisons, there is that small acoustic guitar fiddle in the beginning of "You Are The One" that instant made me thought of the same fiddle from the beginning of Shania Twain's "From This Moment On".
Also about the Dance Rock remark I made, I did rack my brain on the beats from "Doctor Love"'s little breakdown and the comparable 'dance with melodic guitar' song that finally came to my head was the dance remix version of "(If You're Not In It For Love) I'm Outta Here!" (1995) that was used for the music video - another complex dance song I was fascinated by when I was little. (Could you hear the comparison?)

Yeah, it's not that I got lazy, it's just there's barely much information written about Christina and Sarah Jane Fearnley and much about this album, not even a Thai Wikipedia. Christina's full name certainly doesn't help her information being buried under the name Christina Aguilera. What I do know it's that I was hoping one day the album would be available to purchase but it's remained out of stock for over 6 years since I went looking. I encountered this website (https://www.ethaicd.com/show.php?pid=14) and it provided small information, "Christina's first English album, singing her hits in English", the released date and the tracklists in English with the what would be their title in Thai in brackets - meaning these songs may have been made and published before 1999 but in Thai (motif and compostions) based on the article you've found about the album and the singers. (Thanks for finding an article about them on this album by the way, I wouldn't have thought it would still exist).

I only remember a small informations on Fearn 9 years ago and yes, about her being an English singer and backing vocalist but I thought the information was so buried under Google random links, researching her full name was like looking up a random stranger. I did read about some of Christina's discography to encounter "You Are The One" and her being a Thai superstar but the page was written in Thai, so I stopped reading it. What I do know is that the label the album is under 'MGA' (Grammy, I presume) and another label 'RS Promotion' are very well known and popular in many Thai album and cassettes. https://www.discogs.com/label/318745-MGA
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Re: Christina & Fearn - You Are The One (1999)

Post by Cicice »

ProjectTermina wrote: Wed Dec 07, 2022 10:22 pm
One thing to note:
Cicice wrote: Wed Dec 07, 2022 11:33 am I wouldn't have made a review this long if I wasn't impassionate about it.
I think the word you're looking for is "impassioned" or "passionate," either of which means "with emotion." "Impassionate" means "without emotion." English is a dumpster fire of a language. lol

Now listening to Thai Britney, Tata Young. I see the comparison for sure. I am liking this a lot so far too, especially the song transitions.
Yeah whoops, I'm gonna edit that. I was looking up which word would be useful to use between "Passionate" and "Impassioned" and when I looked up "Impassioned" the definition reads "filled with showing great emotion" and I just went with impassionate. English language sure is a slippery slope at times hahaa. I wrote this review within an hour as practice, so it will come across as a bit rushed.

Lastly out of curiosity, since the album will probably remain unheard of and not talked about, what would be your favourite and least favourite song from the album? And how would you rate it out of 10?

And what did you have to do to make the appear video visible like you did with American Hi-Fi and Caroline Polachek's "Billions"?
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Re: Christina & Fearn - You Are The One (1999)

Post by Cicice »

This is also a very small clip of them and producer Simon Henderson I found that contains a music video. Like the page you found about Sarah Jane Fearnley, here she talks a little bit about her occupation. And I think that's about it with the infos.

https://youtu.be/yk24rHWHRus
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Re: Christina & Fearn - You Are The One (1999)

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Cicice wrote: Thu Dec 08, 2022 2:05 pm And what did you have to do to make the appear video visible like you did with American Hi-Fi and Caroline Polachek's "Billions"?
You can click the "quote" button on my original post to see the BBCode I used. You use the youtube-https tag enclosed around the youtube link. Note that it only works with the full link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU5m4M1x8vQ) and not the youtu.be shortening (https://youtu.be/yU5m4M1x8vQ). There are buttons in the full editor that can help you generate these BBCode tags.
Cicice wrote: Thu Dec 08, 2022 2:05 pm Lastly out of curiosity, since the album will probably remain unheard of and not talked about, what would be your favourite and least favourite song from the album? And how would you rate it out of 10?
When I rate things, I have a scale that looks something like this:

5 - special to me
4.5 - all-time classic
4 - i recommend it; worth a listen
3.5 - i like it quite a bit; good stuff
3 - i like it decently enough; pretty neat
2.5 - not worth the time to revisit; shrunk on me
2 - unappealing; bothers me
1.5 - awful; has serious issues

This will look a little familiar if you've seen my album diaries on the albums thread. This is also the rating scheme I use on rateyourmusic, speaking of dumpster fires. I would give You Are the One 4 stars. In other words, if you're reading this -- give You Are the One a listen.

I think my favorite track has to be "You Are the One." That rippin sax really tugs at my heartstrings. "Doctor Love" is probably my second favorite. It's got a killer groove. For my third favorite, I'm really starting to love the drama of "Brightheart." Special mentions to "Call Me Back," "Back to You for Good," and "You've Been Cheating." My least favorite would probably be "Who Is She." I think the chorus melody is a little cloying and annoying. Not as annoying as this "Who Is She" from 2022, but still:

Yes, it looks like most or all of these songs are English remixes of previously released songs. There is a pinned comment that lists the track names in English and Thai, and I was able to find all the Thai recordings on Spotify. Compared to the originals, I would say all the recordings on You Are the One are very Madonnafied, especially "Eternal," which gets a whole new intro, and is completely reorchestrated with synthesizers. Another example is that the aforementioned Donna Summer sample in "Doctor Love" is specific to the English recording. The original Thai recording of "Fantastic Love" has this completely insane percussion sound in the chorus that sounds like a collapsing building. I really like how "Brightheart" uses the original title, "Raun", in its chorus: "Brightheart / don't fight it and run." I have assembled these original Thai recordings in a Spotify playlist for your enjoyment.


Cicice wrote: Thu Dec 08, 2022 2:39 pm This is also a very small clip of them and producer Simon Henderson I found that contains a music video. Like the page you found about Sarah Jane Fearnley, here she talks a little bit about her occupation. And I think that's about it with the infos.

https://youtu.be/yk24rHWHRus
Wow! Nice find. That's definitely the person from the Mandy page I found earlier, for sure. This confirms the impression that I got, that Fearnley has mostly been a session and touring musician. I think it's really interesting that here she is, doing interviews, putting her face on an album, going by a cool stage name, and then we never hear from her again. Why? Did she want to be an international pop star and suddenly change her mind? Did Christina work with her just to make it appear to her Thai audience that she was bigger in the rest of the world than she was? It's not like Fearn has any star power for Christina to benefit from. How did they even meet each other? I wonder if people in Thailand still know who Fearn is? I bet she's more famous there than anywhere else. So weird.
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Re: Christina & Fearn - You Are The One (1999)

Post by Cicice »

ProjectTermina wrote: Thu Dec 08, 2022 4:24 pm
Cicice wrote: Thu Dec 08, 2022 2:05 pm And what did you have to do to make the appear video visible like you did with American Hi-Fi and Caroline Polachek's "Billions"?
Yes, it looks like most or all of these songs are English remixes of previously released songs. There is a pinned comment that lists the track names in English and Thai, and I was able to find all the Thai recordings on Spotify. Compared to the originals, I would say all the recordings on You Are the One are very Madonnafied, especially "Eternal," which gets a whole new intro, and is completely reorchestrated with synthesizers. Another example is that the aforementioned Donna Summer sample in "Doctor Love" is specific to the English recording. The original Thai recording of "Fantastic Love" has this completely insane percussion sound in the chorus that sounds like a collapsing building. I really like how "Brightheart" uses the original title, "Raun", in its chorus: "Brightheart / don't fight it and run." I have assembled these original Thai recordings in a Spotify playlist for your enjoyment.
Cicice wrote: Thu Dec 08, 2022 2:39 pm This is also a very small clip of them and producer Simon Henderson I found that contains a music video. Like the page you found about Sarah Jane Fearnley, here she talks a little bit about her occupation. And I think that's about it with the infos.

https://youtu.be/yk24rHWHRus
Wow! Nice find. That's definitely the person from the Mandy page I found earlier, for sure. This confirms the impression that I got, that Fearnley has mostly been a session and touring musician. I think it's really interesting that here she is, doing interviews, putting her face on an album, going by a cool stage name, and then we never hear from her again. Why? Did she want to be an international pop star and suddenly change her mind? Did Christina work with her just to make it appear to her Thai audience that she was bigger in the rest of the world than she was? It's not like Fearn has any star power for Christina to benefit from. How did they even meet each other? I wonder if people in Thailand still know who Fearn is? I bet she's more famous there than anywhere else. So weird.
Yes I remember checking out your rating styles and thanks for quote tip. Also thanks for the Spotify listing of the original songs. Quite a fascinating but alienating listening experience after years from listening to the English version with Fearn's input on the album. I can still hear the familiar instrumentation in the original except "Star" - I'm even having doubts if it is the song but if so, it's bloody unrecognisable and distracting in a Minnie Riperton attempt way. Great description on "Fantastic Love", that original version was a fucking bulldozer, would have wished the English version had been as heavy. In fact, the original version of "Fantastic Love" and "Who Is She?" are probably the only two songs I prefer slighty over the English version. "Open Hands" and "You Are The One" has the least amount of changes. I like "Eternal" equal on both version, it seems more dance friendly (Express Yourself!) with the horns / sax and without the synths but the guitars are still there. "Brightheart sounds even more like a Sade record with the saxophone joining in the cool instrumentation, African percussions, funky synth bass and guitar and doesn't the beat from the Thai original of "Who Is She?" remind you of that "Uh oh! We're in trouble" song by Shampoo? I would say out of all the songs, "Star" (if it is the song) and "Who Is She?" along with "Eternal" faced the most amount of changes.

That "Who Is She" by RuPaul wasn't too bad, it has a sassy camp attitude with a diva appeal but vocally and lyrically, it just wasn't interesting.

I looked up Bjorn Again and despite Fearn's year occupation discography on the Mandy Page, I've found some image on her on stage with the band on the year 1998 and 2009. Just by one look and it's clear to see that Bjorn Again is an ABBA tribute act. The members are not stated on the Wikipedia page but on Google image, it's clear to see that there may have been some line up change with the members.

Going by vague judgement, I would say based on the "You Are The One" music video, the project seems to be a little more about Christina than Fearn. Maybe because the songs were Christina's hits and Christina is already an established Thai superstar but I can see that Christina was the obvious eye candy based on beauty, outfit and confident body movements compare to Fearn's hand raise and innocent smile. And you're right, it does strike me that Fearn was cut out to be a session and a touring singer with a band than a solo superstar.

I do indeed wonder how did Fearn end up in Thailand with Christina since the album was published under a Thai label. My only guess is maybe Christina's team wanted to market the album to the western and felt an English singer would be requirable to give the project a more English / European appeal, advertised it and maybe Fearn had a music agent, saw the advertisement and recommend it to her and Fearn took it as a progressing opportunity for her occupation or maybe she wanted to find work to keep her singing career going. That's my only guess.
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Re: Christina & Fearn - You Are The One (1999)

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Cicice wrote: Fri Dec 09, 2022 11:32 am My only guess is maybe Christina's team wanted to market the album to the western and felt an English singer would be requirable to give the project a more English / European appeal...
See, that's the thing, Fearn has zero public awareness in the West at this time or at any time. Couldn't Tina have gotten somebody with a bit more name recognition?

I'm also starting to wonder if Aguilar's chances at fame in the West were dashed by Christina Aguilera's chart-topping, Grammy-winning debut album that year. They are very similar names, which could make it difficult for people to talk about the less popular artist and spread the word. It was really difficult to research Christina Aguilar because Google kept thinking I meant Christina Aguilera. That's really bad. Maybe going by "Tina Aguilar" would help?

Maybe now's the time to capitalize on nineties nostalgia and bring Tina to the West. She should get Snoop Dogg on a song. That man will agree to anything.
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Re: Christina & Fearn - You Are The One (1999)

Post by Cicice »

It is the bit of a slippery slope for Aguilar because according to Wikpedia, Aguilar hit the radio in 1990 whilst Aguilera made a first TV appearance in 1993 - that's their first start! As of 1999, Aguilera was making her first breakthrough but for Aguilar, 4 of her albums has sold over 1.7 millions copies under the name Christina Aguilar. So I wonder if changing to avoid confusion with Aguilera would alienate some audiences. It shouldn't but some people do act like it does, like Joey Negro, Dixie Chicks and for me, Cheryl Cole. It think it might have done or many with dance act, there's only so much success you could achieve with dance pop albums before the listeners begins to lose interest.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina_Aguilar

Just yesterday I saw an NME article about a band named Slaves changing their name to Soft Play. It was disliked by many commenters and the Soft Cell and Cold Play jokes came thick and fast. Imagine the possibility of Snoop Dogg, the contrast of "I'll always be there with my love" meeting "when the pimps in the crib, ma!" 😃

Anyway, thanks for the discussion ProjectTermina. Merry Christmas, look forward to your year-end lists and enjoy the album whenever you choose to!
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