Pieces Of A Dream - Anastacia

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Definitely a cut above the rest
Lyrics	Thought-provoking
Quality and consistency of tracks	Mixed
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Average
Value for Money	Satisfactory

Advantages:	Some very decent music
Disadvantages:	For the fans, the new songs are a bit of a let down

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Five years is a long time in the music business scene. Although it doesn't seem that long, it is five years since Anastacia hit the charts for the first time with "I'm Outta Love". Since then, so much has happened.

In the five years since then, we have seen any number of pop groups split up, TV start to create pop stars and for most of those artificially created pop stars to crash and burn. Madonna has reinvented herself twice and, until diagnosed with breast cancer, Kylie has just kept going.

In those five years, Anastacia has released three studio albums, selling 3 million copies of these in the UK and more than 20 million around the world. She has also battled and beaten breast cancer herself, although further away from the limelight than Kylie's current battle.

It's not just a strong voice that Anastacia has, but strength of character too. It is this combination that has enabled her to release a greatest hits album "Pieces of a Dream" after only five years as a major label singer, yet still manage to pack it with hits.

The album opens with the debut single, "I'm Outta Love", a song which grabbed me from the first and made me an Anastacia fan to start with. In five years, nothing has changed and I still love this song. It's a high tempo pop song, with soul undertones and a beat that has you dancing and unable to help yourself. At the time this was released, there was really no-one who combined soul and heavy pop the way Anastacia did and there are very few singers today who have the strength in their vocal to pull it off even now.

The second track is also from her debut album. This time it is the title track from 2000's "Not That Kind". This is slightly slower in tempo than "I'm Outta Love" and has more of a funky, soulful feel to it. But there is enough of a pop-dance edge that you want to dance along with it. As ever, the main thing to listen to is the vocal, which is never anything less than powerful.

Still in the early days, "Cowboys and Kisses" is the next track. This has much more of a laid back feel, really being the album's first ballad. There's a guitar led feel to this one, with the intro having more of a country rock feel, which crops up later on as well. Combined with Anastacia's naturally funky voice, this makes for quite a powerful pop ballad with a bit of a twist. This song has more of a pop influence than before, thanks to the addition of an orchestral section and the backing vocals, but it's still a very decent song.

The last track taken from Anastacia's debut album is "Made For Lovin' You". Again, we're back to the funky music and it's not too different to "I'm Outta Love", although a little slower in tempo. There's perhaps a little more of a pop influence and less emphasis on the soul side of things, but it's another powerful track that has you wanting to tap your feet in time.

In keeping with the chronological order of the track list, the next four tracks are taken from the second album, 2002's "Freak of Nature". The first of these is "Paid My Dues", a song with a little more of a pop-dance feel to it, although still overlaid with Anastacia's funky vocal and still managing to retain quite a funky backing beat.

"One Day in Your Life" is very much back to the sound of "I'm Outta Love", with a dance-soul backing beat and the vocals adding the funkiest of edges over the top. Again, it's up tempo, despite the slightly deceptive intro and makes you want to dance to it. Although it's quite samey, it's definitely a winning formula from my point of view.

The guitar intro to "Why'd You Lie to Me" does sound a little like George Michael's "Faith" at first, but once the funky vocal comes in, any comparison ends. This one's slightly slower than Anastacia's usual tempo and it's got more of a dance or r 'n' b feel to it, so it's not one of my favourites, although the vocals are still as powerful as ever.

There's another ballad up next with "You'll Never Be Alone". Considering how powerful Anastacia can be, this track is a little disappointing, as it's really nothing more than a standard pop ballad with slight r 'n' b leanings that you can here from any female singer. Admittedly, the chorus is when you can tell this is Anastacia as, although any singer could do a song like this, they don't have her distinctive voice and it's the chorus where this comes to the fore. But for all that, it does sound like this should be on a Disney soundtrack album somewhere, the sound is such a standard one.

It's onto 2004's "Anastacia" for the next four tracks, starting with "Left Outside Alone". The intro in particular was a departure, being almost operatic in style. I remember when this first came out that I had to keep checking if it was Anastacia, as it is so unlike her. The rest of the song is more familiar territory, also not quite as funky as usual. Thanks to the vocal, as ever, it's still a very powerful mid tempo pop song.

The next track inhabits the same ground of "pop music with a slight twist", with the twist to "Sick and Tired", having a bit more of an Eastern feel to it, although with a male voice similar in style to Youssou N'Dour also appearing in some parts. Strangely, the backing is guitar led, which could almost make this a pop-rock song were it not for the other elements. This is a song with so many contributing factors that it virtually defies description, which is precisely how good music can be sometimes.

"Welcome to My Truth" doesn't have quite that intricacy to it. It's really a fairly simple pop-rock number, in which the backing music sometimes threatens to over power the vocal, which certainly isn't a good thing when the vocals are as strong as Anastacia's. In this case, it's not a bad song, but it's tough to concentrate properly on it, as the backing music is so loud in the mix.

The last of the previously released tracks is "Heavy on My Heart", which carries on where "You'll Never Be Alone", as it has that standard pop ballad from a Disney Soundtrack feel, especially in the verse. The chorus is a little more developed, but for the most part, you could put anyone's vocals on this song and it wouldn't change it appreciably, apart from that the new vocal would almost definitely be weaker than Anastacia's.

As with every greatest hits package, there has to be some new material to keep the fans happy. The first of these is "Everything Burns", which is a collaboration with Ben Moody from Evanescence. This is really more of an Evanescence song than it is one from Anastacia, as her vocals don't sound much like her at all, with the funky edge she's known for and which has in evidence through the whole of the album so far pretty much gone. It's a pop-rock ballad, but the female singer could have been pretty much anyone. You do get a bit of a glimpse of the true Anastacia vocals towards the end, but it's only a glimpse. It's a good song, though, but it just doesn't feel like her.

There is another duet up next, this time between Anastacia and Eros, who I'd never heard of before now. He does sound a lot like Zucchero, who did a song with Paul Young several years ago. Like many of the ballads on the album, however, "I Belong To You (Il Ritmo Della Passione)" does have that kind of saccharine Disney soundtrack pop ballad feel. It's well performed, but there simply isn't anything special about it.

"Pieces of a Dream" is the title track from this selection and it's a bit more like the Anastacia of the early part of the album. It's a bit ballad like again, but more mid tempo in the chorus. There's a distinct pop feel here, but Anastacia's voice is again the driving force, so it's almost a power ballad, especially as the chorus has something of a heavy pop feel.

The piano intro to "In Your Eyes" seems to suggest more of the same and indeed it starts that way. There's a restrained note to the vocals which almost make this sound like a Delta Goodrem track, although with a little more heart to it. It does get a bit more of a rounded feel later on, but there's really nothing special in this song, or in any of the new tracks.

Sadly, the album finishes on a bit of a disappointing note, with the "Club Megamix", which is a mix of a number of her hits to a dance backing. Whilst many of the songs do lead themselves to being combined with a dance beat, at just under 12 minutes, this does drag and it is a little unnecessary, especially as it's really nothing new when combined with the sixteen tracks before it.

For me personally, Anastacia's career started with a bang with "I'm Outta Love" and has been tailing off since. Whilst she has moved away from her earlier sound, meaning you don't get the same song over and over, I preferred her earlier music to her more recent albums. In putting her hits in chronological order here, that means that this album does the same, starting impressively and then getting worse as it goes on. The new tracks, in particular, are a bit of a let down, as her voice isn't really designed for ballads, more for all out high tempo songs.

There are two copies of the album available, one with the seventeen songs described above and one with an extra CD which just has some remixes of existing songs. The difference in price, up to as much as £5.00, depending on where you look, hardly makes the 2 CD version worthwhile, unless you're paying the £9.99 from Amazon or £4.99 from eBay. For the single CD version, it is much easier to find cheaply, with prices ranging from £7.99 from CD Wow down to £5.89 from the Amazon Marketplace or from 99p from eBay. It's pretty good value, being 17 tracks and 72 minutes long and even discounting the awful megamix, there's still an hour of largely decent music here.

If you're a fan of Anastacia and already have all the albums, this isn't a worthwhile purchase, as the new songs are really nothing special and not worth the money on their own. If, however, you are a casual fan and only own one of the albums, or if you liked the singles but never made an album purchase, this would definitely be worth a look, featuring an equal amount of material from all three albums and some new material. If you're a pop fan and wouldn't mind trying something with a little more of a funk edge, this is also going to be made for you.