Andrea Bocelli (Sugar/Polydor)
How to explain the appeal of Andrea Bocelli, a guy who has sold more discs than there are grapes in Tuscany? Possibly folks think they're getting Pavarotti for Dummies, but Bocelli is as treacly as a Mediterranean Engelbert Humperdinck. Fans don't mind. You know who you are. Face it, he could sing the train schedule for Roma Termini and you'd blubber like the bride's mom at a royal wedding.
Bocelli still sings in Italian, but in English these lavishly upholstered ballads, all new tunes, wouldn't pass the ick test around the writers' table at Guiding Light: "If people used their heart/To decide quite simply/What's right and what isn't/You fee we'd be/A whole lot happier." The voice remains polished, buffed, even Turtle Waxed, but someday Bocelli will get bored with himself—perhaps he'll try bluegrass or join Ozzfest? For now he's content to sing of the moon and the sea and the heart and—stop it! Oh, go get a hankie.
Bottom Line: Buy if you must cry
Your Reaction
