Selah Sue's new album – Persona – got released, a few days ago, time to write a critique – or, or maybe not?
Her sound has changed, became straighter. Well, a mother now, motherhood and tenderness, depressions and the "Pills" she takes since getting sixteen. Fifteen symbols inside, the self-confident on the discs, the self-confident Selah Sue on the cover. Different from on her first album - Selah Sue – over a decade ago. No longer is her head lowered, looking shy at you. And even on "Reason" – her second album – she simply looked straight at you, her facial expression questioning. This time she looks down on you, the hair a topknot, her facial expression defying, could be the young Brigitte Bardot. This is a different Selah Sue. Blah, blah, blah, blah.................this is not like it functions for me.
I'm a nearly fifty-seven-year-old single male, no kids – what a nonsense would I write about motherhood? I'm often very disappointed about the humans, sometimes disgusted, but I have no depressions and take no pills. I would be a lousy music journalist, I need days, typically weeks, to get a feeling for a new album.
Ms. Grant, without any doubt I know more than 500 songs by her, from he earliest songs until today - her self-made videos, open mic performances. But every new album sounds strange to me, unfamiliar, until I drown in her music like always, no escape possible. However, it requires a moment of time, a moment of time to figure out my feelings. Yes, my feelings, not the feelings of Ms. Grant or Selah Sue. It's art!
There's an artist who creates art, she or he has hers or his feelings when doing it. Then there's an artwork, an album, a movie, a poem, a novel..........and a person who listens to the music, watches the movie, reads the poem or the novel – the recipient (consumer). What's the recipient's task now? Well, of course, this question can be answered in very different ways. My answer?
I'm no professor for art (history) working at a university, I'm a private person. Is my task to ask what the artist felt while creating her or his art? Or while performing her or his art? It's not forbidden or meaningless, but what about my feelings?
Art means emotion. For the artist while creating and performing art, for the recipient while experiencing art. And important point. Say a songstress sings about what it means to her to be a mother now, to have a little child. Most probably singing this song is a very emotional act for this songstress – and for me, listening this song, an old single man with no children? Maybe a very emotional act as well, pondering about having no child. These are extremely diverse emotions, the link is the artwork, the artwork created by an artist.
Selah Sue, Persona? Well, have to listen to it, the next days, again and again, possibly the next weeks. Music, a special kind of art for me. Songstresses, with pitched voices, have written hundreds of pages while listening to their music. Well, of course, Garbage seems not to fit, Shirley Manson, but Garbage is something exceptional. The Dresden Dolls and Amanda Palmer, also "a bit" different – but Selah Sue seems not to fit.
Her music – soul, reggae, funk, and hip-hop are musical styles normally mentioned when talking about Selah Sue. Yeah, I'm old enough to know Motown, Bob Marley, Bootsy Collins or Grandmaster Flash, but never stuck especially to this music. I've two tickets on my desk. Morcheeba, would be the second time that I see them live. And, since two years now, Agnes Obel. Two tickets I miss - Émilie Simon and Selah Sue. Émilie Simon will be difficult, but Selah Sue will be only a matter if time.
I've no real idea why her music touches me that much, but we talk about feelings. And that's something I've to learn because I cannot do it, give your feelings free rein. Maybe listening to Selah Sue live would help me.