Some of ‘Face’s song choices are a bit standard. He embellishes upon the original versions slightly, adding a lengthy coda to “Fire & Rain” and a couple of key changes to the uplifting “Shower the People”, and does a good job of it by adding slight twists to these already familiar songs. He tackles two songs by James Taylor, long one of my favorite vocalists and songwriters. ‘Face’s beautiful rendition reminds me that I need to pick up some of Croce’s work. A version of Jim Croce’s “Time in a Bottle” is effective in it’s simplicity. He adds two newly written and recorded songs that are as powerful as his best work.Īs someone who spent his childhood and teenage years listening to “lite” radio stations as much as he did contemporary pop and hip-hop radio, I’m familiar enough with most of these songs that I can compare ‘Face’s covers favorably to the originals.
#LIST OF BABYFACE SONGS FULL#
With minimal adornment, ‘Face, (or, rather, Edmonds, using his full name for the first time in his twenty-year recording career), delivers faithful versions of these songs that wouldn’t have sounded incredibly out of place on a peak-era Babyface record. It’s not necessarily the list of artists you’d expect to be tributed by a contemporary soul singer, although it makes sense that ‘Face would hold these songs close to his heart, due to his Midwestern upbringing. Among the artists covered here are Bread, Dan Fogelberg, and James Taylor, (twice).
Playlist, at first glance, may seem like an unlikely project for the R&B legend as eight of the album’s 10 songs are covers of soft rock classics from the Seventies. Now, the guy who has written hits for everyone from TLC and Boyz II Men to Madonna and Clapton is attempting to recapture his muse by covering other people’s material. An attempt at recapturing the fans who’d initially made ‘Face into a superstar, it sounded forced and uninspired, and it sold accordingly, sending Babyface back to the drawing board again. The album sold underwhelmingly, as did an album called Grown & Sexy.
The multi-faceted artist first attempted a funky makeover, growing his hair out and working with The Neptunes. He may have been the most successful songwriter and producer of the ’90s, but the 21st century has not yet been kind to Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds.
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