Daydreams - Alice Martineau

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Groundbreaking
Lyrics	Sublime
Quality and consistency of tracks	Flawless
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Not applicable
Value for Money	Good

Advantages:	long shelf life, will put you through wide range of emotions
Disadvantages:	Nothing else to explore after this discovery

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Alice always said she wasn’t a person with Cystic Fibrosis (CF) who could sing, She was a singer who just happened to have Cystic Fibrosis. So I am going to try not to dwell this point too much until I have told you about her music. No promises though, since it is a subject close to my heart.

Alice’s songs were special for a number of reasons, she couldn’t have just got up at a karaoke night and sang the latest Britney Spears number, Her songs were written so she could breathe when she needed to, an important factor when you have considerably less lung capacity than most people. But they are mainly special simply because her voice is shatteringly amazing. Now much I would like to think that everybody with CF has wonderful singing voices, as my boyfriend will testify, we don’t. But when you spend so much time coughing you do tend to build up your diaphragm muscles, plus Physiotherapy isn’t just about getting whacked on the back very hard, it is also about breathing techniques, so I guess this kind of “Training” would help any singer.

Released in 2002 by Sony Music, the blurb likened her to Dido, Natalie Imbruglia and Bjork. No, No, No. Alice is not boring and neither do all her songs sound the same, and the only resemblance she bears to Bjork is that they both have distinctive voices. Alice has a seductive singing voice, Husky and sexy (another common trait in all women with CF, of course…!), a haunting echo to make you tingle.

The album opens with “If I Fall” a gentle melody with uplifting guitars. This was the debut single and was Jo Whiley's Single of the Week. This track has Alice reminiscing about her childhood, and how her father protected her and made her feel safe. This may or may not have something to do with the fact that he did her physiotherapy while she was growing up. (She thanks him for this in the sleeve notes)

“Breathe Tonight” was the first song I really got hooked by, I can imagine throwing some shapes around the dance floor to this one, something I do not do as a rule. When she sings, “I don’t want to breathe tonight, I just want to keep the moment inside” she doesn’t want to have to think about making the effort to breathe. She wants to savour this moment in time, rather than worrying about remembering she has to make that extra effort to fill her lungs.

Track four, “Inside of You”, is all the more meaningful now that Alice has passed away (she lost her battle with CF on 6 March 2003 aged 30). “You’re letting me live inside of you, your letting me live as someone new”. Sometimes being ill can stop you doing some of the things you want to do, so you have to live vicariously through others. Not that Alice let an awful lot stand in her way. The albums only real slowie, all plinky plonky pianos and moments that make your heart jump up into your throat. Alice’s vocals are partially powerful on this track, leaping buildings in single bounds.

“The Sunlight Song” floats in on a summer breeze, featuring the best whooo-whooo since Wham’s “Bad Boys” while “Too Late” features the all the regrets of the human heart set to a delightful bubblegum swing. “Nothing is Forever” starts off like Britpop never died, just grew up, before grabbing hold of you and making you dance your legs down to your ankles

Overall eleven fine pop songs you will find hard to tire of. “The Right Time”, about building up the courage to leave someone, is the disco track Alice should have discarded, the dizzy synth drowning out the vocals but apart from this and maybe “Baby’s Fine”, a heavenly record from a beautiful woman the world never got the chance to fall in love with.

Tracklisting
1.If I Fall
2. Baby’s Fine
3. Breathe Tonight
4. Inside of You
5. Sweet Fantasy
6. Too Late
7. The Right Time
8. The Sunlight Song
9. Three Colours Blind
10. Forget What I said
11. Nothing is Forever

The sleeve includes all the lyrics and some pictures of Alice as well as a plea for people to carry donor cards (Alice needed a Heart, Lung and Liver transplant, of which only 5 have ever been performed)

I paid about 15 pounds for this album when it first came out, however it now appears for around the ten pound mark, I have occassionally found it for about five pounds in a sale.

SO WHO IS THIS ALICE MARTINEAU?

Yes, Alice had CF, but there are far more interesting things about her (like the fact that her bother Luke, who is a painter, is very cute.... ahem...) She counted Robbie Williams and Blue as friends and used to be a model. She came too most people’s attention through the BBC Documentary "The Nine lives of Alice Martineau" which was first shown on BBC3, and has more recently been on BBC2 (it was on really late, so still hardly anyone has seen it!) I have already told you that she was waiting for a transplant when she died but she also campaigned tirelessly for an increase in organ donation. She also managed to raise the profile of CF - How many pop stars do you see interviewed on the telly with oxygen tubes up their nose...She was 30 years old when she died. Average life expectancy in the UK is 31.

Too be honest I could go on and on forever about what life is like with CF, but that’s not want I wanted this review to be about.

For more about Alice go to www.alicemartineau.com
For more about Cystic Fibrosis go to www.cftrust.org.uk