Conchita presents eclectic debut album
This week, the Eurovision Song Contest takes place again and this means that it is already a year ago that the Austrian drag act Conchita Wurst won. She claimed the victory convincingly with her song ‘Rise Like A Phoenix’. When I spoke to Conchita in April 2014 about an upcoming album she said she is her ‘own worst critic’ and wanted only the best songs on her album. Now, more than a year later, she finally released her self titled debut album, but was she right about finding the right tracks?
Conchita obviously wanted to show the different sides of her artistry as her album is not directed at one genre in particular. The overall style could be described as pop, but on almost every track she tries something different, which makes for a versatile album and the good thing is that it never feels like an incoherent mess. Conchita’s vocals are the centre of the album throughout and she shows she is capable of doing a whole lot of different things with it. She sounds like a current dance diva on ‘Colours of Your Love’ with an outstanding chorus and returns to the discos of the 90s on the wonderfully produced ‘Firestorm’. She completely follows her own path on the brilliant ‘Out Of Body Experience’, that has some oriental strings and percussion and she releases her inner big band diva on the bold and fun ‘Where Have All The Good Men Gone’.
The albums opens with the current single ‘You Are Unstoppable’, a midtempo pop song that stands out lyrically as it is everything that the persona Conchita stands for: “You are stronger than you believe, you are unstoppable.” The outspoken lady with the beard that took Europe by storm last year, shows she is still a strong advocate for gay rights on the dramatic and suspenseful ‘Put The Fire Out’. “Hear this voice, telling you there’s no choice, we’re gonna spread our love, Whether you like it, whether you don’t”, she states convincingly. It is one of the best tracks on the record with a marching rhythm that begs to be used at te next big human rights event.
Conchita shows she still excels at ballads with big vocals, as she did on her Eurovision entry that is also included on the album. ‘Heroes’ has an impressive last chorus and ‘Pure’ has a captivating chorus. If you take this all in and view it as the debut album that Conchita is, you have to admit she made the right choice not to just release an album when the hype was there last year, because she would have never been able to deliver the product that she does now. With Eurovision 2015 in Vienna now, she is in the spotlights again (as if she was ever gone) so she will be able to create some buzz around this release that deserves to be heard!
Must listen: Put That Fire Out, Out Of Body Experience, Heroes, Colours of Your Love, Where Have All The Good Men Gone