Lisa Stansfield 'So Natural'

Chart Peak: 15

YouTube

Rochdale's Lisa Stansfield first charted as featured vocalist on Coldcut's 'People Hold On' back in 1989... Solo hits such as 'All Around The World', 'Change' and 'In All The Right Places' have established has as one of our top female singers and 'So Natural' continued her success when it entered the chart at No. 15 on 17th October '93.

Funnily enough, I saw a copy of this single in a charity shop earlier today. I didn't buy it though, because it's not really as good as any of the other songs mentioned in that sleeve note. The opening title track of her third album is one of those records that it's hard to fault but even harder to enthuse about. Stansfield is in fine voice but there isn't really much for her to do with it and the song itself is painfully cliched. I'm sure the romantic sentiment is genuine enough - she did after all co-write the song with her husband - but there's not enough going on here and her career did seem to stumble at this point, despite her valiant efforts in the video - she must have been under that fountain for hours. She's another name to add to the list of acts poorly represented in the Now! series, unfortunately.

Also appearing on: Now 20
Available on: So Natural

Lisa Stansfield 'Change'

Chart Peak: 10

YouTube

There was always something a bit classier about her than most of the other soul singers around that time, wasn't there? And yes, I do include Mick Hucknall in that. Perhaps that's why she manages to make a decent job of that most difficult tasks, a song about contentment. It's difficult to sound pleased with your life without just sounding pleased with yourself, but she comes closer than most, although it's at least as long as it needs to be even in the single edit - I don't think I'd really want to listen to the longer album version, thanks.

One of her greatest strengths is that she doesn't try to oversell the vocal in this song, and this makes her performance all the more believable. She sounds entirely committed to the material, although that may not have been a great imaginative leap since she co-wrote the song with her husband and as far as I know they're still together almost twenty years later. What she doesn't do is sound like she's protesting too much. Probably the best track on here so far.

Also appearing on: Now 26
Available on: Biography - The Greatest Hits