Album Review: Soul Live - Seal

Two disclaimers - first off, I am almost 30 years old. Secondly, I’ve been a casual Seal fan ever since he broke onto the scene with Crazy. With that out of the way, Soul Live features covers of well-known songs that came out about 40-50 years ago. Seal performs them almost flawlessly with the help of a solid band, and the end result is a nice album you can unwind to after a long day at the office.

All that said, there’s one major issue I have - most of the songs are so recognizable that they just don’t sound the same when someone else sings them. Even when it’s Seal. For example, It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World is a James Brown original, and he wailed it with the raw anguish only the Godfather of Soul could deliver. Seal’s version is good, but it’s too clean and noble. Same problem with Stand By Me, If You Don’t Know Me By Now, and right on down the list.

Again, it’s not like they’re bad - quite the opposite, actually. But it’s all too clean, polished, and neatly packaged. Fortunately, Seal does add versions of Kiss From A Rose (former #1 hit that cleaned up at the 96 Grammys), and the aforementioned Crazy at the back end of the record. Those tracks are unmistakably his, and you can hear the difference.

My theory is this: to really sing great covers of soul songs, sometimes you need to hurt a little. But Seal is married to Heidi Klum. He has a great family and more money than he’ll ever need. Just a guess on my part, but he probably doesn’t have too many inner demons or major issues with his life.

Anyway, I give Soul Live a 3.5 out of 5. And it’s not because there’s anything really wrong with it. It’s just that there’s nothing in here to really remember. This album probably came along about 10-15 years too early for me - give me that time to settle down a little more, and I’ll probably like it even better.

Listen to samples and download the MP3 album: