Monday 23 December 2013

Taio Cruz 'She's Like A Star'

Chart Peak: 20
YouTube
Rising UK soul star and heavily in-demand producer Taio Cruz scored a Top 20 hit with 'She's Like A Star' in August 2008... Mr Cruz is a popular man at the moment having recently spent time in the US working with Britney, Brandy and Justin Timberlake.
Plenty of scope for tenuous links here, since not only has Cruz worked with Travie McCoy, he also recorded a version of 'Umbrella' that was never released because the writers presumably wanted to hand it to a bigger star, no pun intended. He also has a significant tally of hit singles but little success on the albums market, with at least one his albums so boring they couldn't even be bothered to release the whole thing in the UK.

Possibly part of the problem is that Cruz seems too competent a musician, somebody who knows how to write and produce a hit but not how to add any character to it. This is a sort of sappy ballad that doesn't even quite have the courage to be that, with its resolutely medium tempo and repeated chipmunk-like vocal; Corrine Bailey Rae supposedly claimed that this was suspiciously similar to her own hit 'Like A Star' but he insisted this was coincidental. At one point it sounds a bit like he's singing "she makes me want to be a better man or wife" which is as close as this gets to anything interesting, though the song is really supposed to be about (imagined) parenthood.

Apparently Cruz has said he'll release a single from his next album "before 2014" so he's got about a week left.

Also appearing on: Now 69 [with Luciana], 70, 72 (with Tinchy Stryder), 74, 76 [with Ke$ha], 77, 78 [with Travie McCoy], 81, 82
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