Enya

Enya isn't exactly pushing the limits with this 2003 release -- in fact, she may have forgotten where the limits are. What she is doing, however, is playing to her base, and she does that very successfully. This gauzy music consistently evokes "Oronoco Flow" (her breakout 1988 hit) with its overdubbed vocals, ethereal arrangements and mystical production values.

If Enya were a Pokemon, she'd be Jigglypuff, the little pink monster who renders her
opponents powerless by singing them to sleep. This isn't a bad thing: We all need some
rest. But after the course of several albums, each like the one before, the Irish
multi-instrumentalist-singer-composer's skill at ephemeral sonic watercolors has grown
wearisome, like a relative who tells the same stories every holiday. You'd think... More >

Pondering the fate of post-September 11 pop, everyone predicted what they already wished for--Slipknot undone, Britney in hiding. What happened instead was the unthinkable--sales of Enya's first album since 1995 spiked 10 months after release. (And she thought that movie where Charlize Theron f*cked Keanu Reeves and died of cancer was a promotional coup!) Two years in the making with the artiste playing every synthesizer, the 11 songs here last a resounding 34 minutes and represent a significant downsizing of her New Age exoticism since 1988's breakthrough, Watermark--it's goopier, more simplistic. Yanni is Tchaikovsky by comparison, Sarah McLachlan Ella Fitzgerald, treacle Smithfield ham. Right, whatever gets folks through the night. But Enya's the kind of artist who makes you think, if this piffle got them through it, how dark could their night have been? Like Master P or Michael Bolton only worse, she tests one's faith in democracy itself. (Grade - D-)