- #DELETED SCENES FROM THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR ALBUM FULL#
- #DELETED SCENES FROM THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR ALBUM SERIES#
Emerald is a talented singer and she sings in English well, but in the end, the varied jazz-pop productions and the slick dance beats are what set her apart from the crowd. "The Other Woman" is another song that brings to mind Winehouse and Portishead. "Just One Dance" is straight dance-pop with dashes of jazz, and "The Lipstick on His Collar" draws from both Amy Winehouse circa Back to Black (2006) and Portishead circa Dummy (1994). In addition to the pair of singles, the album includes ten new songs quite varied in style. They released Deleted Scenes from the Cutting Room Floor on their Amsterdam label Grandmono Records. The latter two Dutchmen are Emerald's producers. It includes the smash hit singles "Back It Up" and "A Night Like This," both written by Vincent de Giorgio, David Schreurs, and Jan van Wieringen. By the time Deleted Scenes from the Cutting Room Floor came around, Emerald was well established as one of the most exciting new artists to emerge from the Netherlands in some time, and her full-length album debut was eagerly awaited. The follow-up single, "A Night Like This," was an even bigger hit, topping the Dutch charts. Which is a weird thing to happen to one of my guesses, but there you have it.Caro Emerald came out of nowhere in 2009 with the summertime hit "Back It Up," a catchy jazz-pop song with a dance beat. The singles released after the 2nd album suggest that my guess is correct. I suspect that there’ll be a necessary shift in style for Caro Emerald going forward, as the whole “lounge act” shtick is such a niche that I can’t imagine it remaining a viable pigeonhole to live in for very long.
#DELETED SCENES FROM THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR ALBUM SERIES#
One can easily imagine this record as the soundtrack to an anthology TV series where each episode takes place in different versions of a smoke-filled bar with the same band on stage. The songs made for this album were specifically crafted to evoke that jazz-lounge air of a particular kind of scene in a particular kind of movie. If the album sounds like a selection of pieces from a movie, well, that’s the point of the title. It was due in 2015 but things happen in their own pace, I suppose. I eagerly await the next album… if it ever arrives.
#DELETED SCENES FROM THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR ALBUM FULL#
There’s only one other full album so far, The Shocking Miss Emerald, and while it features one of my favorite songs in the artist’s catalog (“Tangled Up”) I just don’t enjoy it as much overall. Which album did you almost pick in favor of this one? Wanna Do.” There’s nothing inherently wrong with it, it’s just the pieces adding up to less than the sum of their parts more than anything else. Only one song really puts me off, and that’s “Dr. I seek out “Stuck” and “Just One Dance” from time to time as well. The already-popular (for good reason) “Back It Up” and “A Night Like This” are included. What more could you want, really? Which songs are the highlights?įor all that the album has a very consistent lounge-act feel to it, there are some clear standouts. The results are toe-tappingly, hip-swayingly fun. This album skirts the edges of the “electro-swing” scene, weaving some modern technical flourishes into the jazz-based tapestry. In this case, though? The metaphors here aren’t too complicated and the intent is usually quite clear. I’m not a words-and-meaning guy when it comes to music. The entendre are definitely double, if only thinly veiled. These are the songs of a woman who knows what she wants and is only willing to put up with a certain amount of shenanigans in the pursuit thereof. They have attitude, verve, and (dare one say it) a lusty approach to the games that men and women get up to on and around the dance floor. These aren’t torch songs, not very many of them anyway. Maybe some of the answer can be found in the lyrics and overall tone of the record. How does it add up to more than the sum of its parts, though? Caro Emerald’s voice is certainly a part of what works, sure. Jazzy lounge-act stylings aren’t normally my thing, but these arrangements work. It’s hard to pin down why this one works so well. Have you ever dreamed a mix like this: Why this pick? It follows (and includes) the two singles with which she started making a name for herself the previous year. This is the first full album from Caro Emerald, or Caroline Esmeralda van der Leeuw if you want to get all “ Gordon Matthew Sumner” about it. Awfully sloppy of me, isn’t it? The next one won’t be a debut. I’m leading off this year’s project with back-to-back debuts. What is it?ĭeleted Scenes From The Cutting Room Floor is the 12-tracks-long 2010 debut album… Sometimes I enter a non-standard musical mode. Kicking back and relaxing to lounge music is particularly not my standard musical mode. Kicking back and relaxing isn’t my standard musical mode, admittedly.