July 15, 2022
This week I decided to write another album review. I hadn’t written one for a while (I think the last one I did in a while was for Stripped by Christina Aguilera) so I checked out some CDs from the library to review. But for some reason I was in the mood to listen to some Seal, because he is one of my favorite artists and has been since I was a kid. While I have listened to some of the songs on his 1994 album, Seal, I wanted to just write about what I felt while listening to the entire album since I hadn’t listened to the full album. At first I put off writing this because I thought, I’m not a professional music writer, how can I even write an album review? But I figured I would just take a chance.
The best way I can describe this album is that it felt like a spiritual experience, a rich, deep, universal experience. I have lately been thinking about what it means to be human and those deep questions of life and death, and as I listened to the album Seal provided me the space to reflect on those questions through his songs. For me, I’ve listened to Seal since I was a kid. I was always listening to “Kiss from a Rose” and even when I got older I listened to more of his songs and I remember listening to his song “Dreaming in Metaphors” when I was working on a project for my environmental science class and even though the project itself was, well, a project, listening to the song felt like a meditative exercise that got me in the flow while brainstorming ideas for the project. I would hear my parents listening to Seal’s music, especially “Prayer for the Dying” and “Don’t Cry.” Seal’s music allowed me to slow down and ponder the questions of the human condition, like fundamental questions and issues. Seal covers a lot of human worries and problems but he always gives a light of hope to his music, so I feel moved and uplifted. It’s very spiritual music and also some of the themes include God and spirituality, like spirituality and humanity are inseparable. Spirituality makes us human, it’s the essence of our existence. The music on Seal is a meditation on life and existence: why are we alive? How do we return to our humanity? What makes us universally human? The themes/ topics he covers in his songs are so open ended. Some of the themes include faith, resolving doubt, life and death, love, romance, awe, self-reflection, humility, self-reflection/ actualization. I think the album cover kind of conveys these themes because it shows what is presumably Seal and his naked body, bending with his head downward and his arms outstretched against a white background. It conveys vulnerability and just this sophisticated beauty. His other album, Human Being, has a similar image with Seal naked against a blue-green background. It just has this incredible beauty that I can’t even describe every time I look at the artwork of the album.
The first song on the album is called “Bring It On” and the song sounds like it belongs in a thriller or action movie of some kind. Compared to the other songs on the album it has a very urgent imperative tone, like “bring on whatever you’ve got coming at me because I’m ready.” The way he says “bring it on” is fierce and bold. The second song on the album is called “Prayer for the Dying” and it has a bittersweet but hopeful feeling, as Seal reminded me that life goes on even after someone’s passing. It also conveys a sense of empathy because Seal is telling the person that he doesn’t know what they are going through but there is a light of hope even when the other person is suffering grief. Even though C major is typically a bright cheerful key, I love the way Seal makes it not optimistic or happy-go-lucky but hopeful that life is eternal and even after we pass away, we continue through this cycle of life and death. It’s a very self-reflective song. Seal reflects on how he has learned lessons from the past but has used them as opportunities to learn about himself and what he can do differently in the future. The third song is called “Dreaming in Metaphors” and it revolves around an unanswered question about something so complicated. I don’t know what the something is but it is a why question, and it implies that there are no tangible straightforward answers to this question. Seal repeats that people are dreaming in these complex metaphors that no one can understand. This really digs deep beyond the surface, and I think that’s what I love about this album is that it is almost like philosophy, because with philosophy it’s fundamentally about asking questions. You can try to find a straightforward answer but you’d be hard-pressed to do that in a philosophical discussion. Believe me, I have tried and each time the professor just keeps getting me to think even deeper beyond the surface. But that’s what I love about philosophy is that it’s about asking and exploring those fundamental human questions about life. The fourth song is called “Don’t Cry” and again it conveys that sort of empathy with the person who is hurting so much. Seal consoles the person as a sort of friend, gently telling them that everything will be okay and that no matter what they will always be loved. I think a motif that features a lot through the album is sadness and tears. It reminded me of an article that cultural critic Wesley Morris had written called “Crying: The Power of a Good Cry” in which he talks about the significance of actors crying in films and the fundamental reason why people cry and how our ability to express these emotions through tears has been shaped by politics, the COVID-19 pandemic, and many other events. At the end he has a very powerful passage:
“Crying arouses the animal in us. I didn’t know such a creature, a werewolf in my case, resided in there. Not a hulk but a hurt, kept far from the surface. For safety. You don’t access it. The wolf finds you. It drags immense sorrow through those tiny openings–nostrils, eyes, the mouth. It’s the animal in us that needs to speak now. It’s waiting, ready for a mass howling when we are.”(Wesley Morris, Feb. 13 2022, “Crying: The Power of a Good Cry”, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/08/magazine/crying.html)
In the songs he sings Seal allows the listener to make space for the natural bodily function called tears. He encourages us to open our hearts and be vulnerable and honest with ourselves and our emotions. He doesn’t want the listener to numb their feelings; he wants us to express them in full.
The Arts Are Life 