Tara Maclean

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Amazon

+ another review of Passenger by Ben Varkentine

Canadian women rule the pop world today.  When did you last tune in your radio and not hear at least one woman from the Great White North blustering about her “womanhood” or selling her soul to sing on the latest Hollywood soundtrack?  There is a certain rationale behind this popular madness, one that has until now remained a national secret.  However, in the interest of continental peace (and appeasing a much larger and more powerful neighbor) I’m about to let the secret out of the bag.

The truth is we’ve been keeping all the good singers to ourselves and letting only the likes of Celine Dion (come to think of it, it’s questionable whether Celine has ever possessed a soul) cross the border.  It’s kind of a national joke:  “Who should we get rid of this year?”

The punch line?  Canadian singers who wear out their welcome at home have to go somewhere so why not America (it worked in the case of Alanis Morrisette).  Thus, what I’m about to tell you about Tara MacLean is akin to treason but I’ll do it anyway, confident in the knowledge that we’re never going to make her go anywhere unless she wants to.

MacLean, in her first album for Capitol Records (her second for Vancouver’s famous “no longer indie” Nettwerk label—the people who brought Sara McLachlan to the world), simply dazzles.  When was the last time you bought a pop album that combined passion, musical variety and intelligent lyrics in a pleasingly nuanced vocal package?  If it has been a long while (it has been for me), at least you now have Passenger.

The record opens with “Jericho” a mélange of decent trip-hop looping and catchy chorus.  To hear the first take, one might think the album is a run of the mill pop effort until the realization dawns that the pleasant musical leanings of the track mask the theme of drug addled despair.  The sublime combination of catchy pop rhythms and serious themes set the tone for the rest of the album.

Songs such as “If I Fall” and  “Passenger” reveal a deep spiritual longing, and a youthful searching.  By the final hidden track “Shakota” the combination of spiritual intensity and haunting desire collapse into a dervish of vocals and rhythms.  “Shakota” alone is worth the album price.   With Passenger MacLean has accomplished something rare in the pop music of today (reminiscent of Sting, Annie Lennox, or label mate Sarah McLachlan) in that she is able to combine honest and heartfelt emotion and intellectually stimulating songcraft without sounding sentimental and adolescent.  This album is the real thing, both stimulating and uplifting.

The weakest part of the album is the production of MacLean’s voice.  It seems like the producers never really let her take off, her vocal range being somewhat artificially constrained in the production.  But this is a minor criticism.  I think it’s simply because what I did hear I want more of.

Well it’s done.  I’ve let the secret out.  Tara MacLean is a national treasure and now the world knows about her.  Soon she’ll be singing Karaoke in Vegas.  What was I thinking?  Since Canada is one of the only democratic nations in the world to have only a domestic espionage agency, I could be seeing some trouble in the coming weeks.  If my column is missing, you’ll know what happened.