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National Music Reviews
Sally Dige
Hard To Please
Night School Records
Street: 05.11
Sally Dige = Kelly Clarkson (or any Idol winner) –
Dave Gahan
It’s one thing to want to emulate an idol—it is quite another to affect your voice on purpose to sound like them. Therein lies Danish/Canadian cabaret/lounge chanteuse Dige’s immediate problem: She seems to want to be Depeche Mode’s lead singer. A quick Internet search produces more interesting earlier experimental music, where she seems to be singing with her own voice. Here, especially on the cloying title track, she appears to be deepening her already limited vocal range to channel Gahan. This tendency pops up a lot: “Immaculate Deception,” “Doppelgänger,” “Your Girl,” and “Dance Of Delusion” all recall a poor man’s version of a Claudia Brücken if not Siouxsie, but lacking these legends’ finesse of how to carry a deeper-intoned note. None of this is to imply the Dige isn’t talented, but what a convoluted mess it is to try to sound like someone other than yourself. –Dean O Hillis