Thursday 12 May 2011

Shara Nelson 'Uptight'

Chart Peak: 19

YouTube

'Uptight' is Shara's 3rd solo hit following 'Down That Road' and 'One Goodbye In Ten' into the Top 30... She previously charted with the Bristol-based outfit Massive Attack.

It might look odd now to see such a legendary act referred to in such terms, but of course as of early 1994 they were a band who'd released one album three years earlier and their apparent lead singer had left to go solo. I don't think it was obvious then that they would return to the level of acclaim (and of Now album appearances) that they did later in the year.

So of course I knew of Nelson as the voice of 'Unfinished Sympathy', and 'Safe From Harm' (which if anything I slightly prefer, though it won't show up again on here) but I was only dimly aware that she had a solo career. I did remember one song from her second album but apart from that I was coming to this pretty fresh and I was actually pleasantly surprised by it. The song itself, co-written with Prince Be of PM Dawn, is good in a go-away-useless-boyfriend way, but it's Nelson's vocal really makes the record: impressively soulful and melodic but refreshingly direct and lacking in showing-off. And as I discovered when I was researching this, her earlier hit 'Down That Road' was even better. This is the sort of discovery that makes the blog feel worthwhile.

Despite her obvious talent, success for Nelson didn't last long and her career seems strangely forgotten. That second album was apparently something of a disappointment and relatively little has been heard from her since. New material is promised for 2011, apparently.

Available on: What Silence Knows

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