Lots of song and a bit overboard in direction
598196
EWF is a fantastic group and they have done so much...great music and voices but this offering is sometimes disparate in a good flow of their catalog.
1239646
Kurt Elling gets a lot of love from critics. He's blessed with a rich and powerful voice and an undeniable abundance of musical talent. He also has a unique personal style that -- and I know I'm in the minority here -- I find profoundly irritating. Elling likes to sloooow songs down, extending every note and adding some of his own. What one reviewer called Elling's "rigorous restructuring of intervals and cadences," I see as "hey, look at me!" showiness.

Fortunately, Elling is not always heavy-handed with his material. Yes, his overly deliberate version of Earth, Wind, and Fire's "After the Love Has Gone" destroys the melody and emphasizes the song's weak, sentimental lyrics, and his snail's-pace cover of the Beatles' "Norwegian Wood" gives this light, wistful song a ponderous weight. Still, his oddly-inflected, loungey version of Joe Jackson's "Steppin' Out", and his reverent rendition of Stevie Wonder's "Golden Lady" are more moderate in tempo and much more enjoyable. The remaining tracks fall somewhere in the middle.

Again, I know this is a minority view, but too often Elling sounds like someone who thinks the singer is more important than the song. (This was something justly said about Christina Aguilera regarding her performance of the national anthem at Superbowl XLV.) When he lets songs be themselves, however, his natural talents shine through. I wish he would do that more often.
2274776
There is definitely some excellent song writing on here, and 1 or 2 songs get me going.  But there are several things not right.  First, there are too many different kinds of music and they conflict with each other, the album just doesn't flow.  It goes from rock to pop to country.  With You by the new Kimberly is very good but it just doesn't belong on this CD.  The album is way over produced also, too much extra crap thrown into the songs, sound effects that are annoying and are not music.  As someone else mentioned, it's a great CD to listen to while folding your laundry, that's about it.
I don't understand the whole Corporate America theme also, the song is not that good and it's hard to hear what the vocalists are saying.  If you want an album that effectively conveys a message about corporate america and contains good rock music, then go with Tom Petty's The Last DJ.  He did what Tom Sholtz tried to do here, only about 10X better.
1456528
I found this CD to be very uneven. There is a mixture of great tracks, most notably "This is Nowhere" among some truly awful songs. I guess my main complaint is the vocal work, which really is not very good for the most part, I think he's just trying too hard and is unable to pull off a great sound. The songs are a wide variety of styles, which doesn't work the entire time. I can appreciate a large spectrum of styles used, but the band just could not pull it off well. Still, this release has a lot of great music on it and I did enjoy it, I just think they could benefit more from a different vocalist.
2822665
Nice harmony's and song choice. I saw them last summer and they rocked. This album is a little overloaded with Nashville style music conventions unlike their live show. I wish they would record 16 tons as they performed it.
3064966
My biggest gripe about this album is there are way too many songs with  Emmylou Harris singing harmony. The song "Hurricane" is about the  destructive power of tropical storms and is easily the best song on the  album. Songs like "Joey", about some union thug who got killed,  go on for what seems like forever, though. Less Emmylou and more Bob and  this might be an album on par with "Blood On The Tracks".
482274
3-4 of the songs are awesome, but the album isn't one that I will listen to over and over again.  A little too much autotune makes it all sound the same.
3675164
Most of the songs are overstylized and modernized as if they were thinking they would get top 40 hits off of this compilation.  The very slow tempos of on most of the tracks seem contrived for dramatic effect.  I would rather have heard them sung in a traditional style with period instruments.  Also, there is kind of a mishmash of styles, as if the artists did not understand the concept of the album, if there was one.  It seems rudderless.  I did like the songs by actor John C. Reilly, who is not a professional singer, but I think he "got it".  Sting's "Shallow Brown" on the second disc is fantastic.  I only wish they had recorded all the verses.  Unfortunately, the few good tracks on this compilation are not worth the price of admission.  There are MUCH better versions of these songs out there and I'm not talking about the "coffeehouse folk guy" that someone else alluded to, because I have heard that stuff and it's equally annoying.  The Sex Pistols' "Good Ship Venus" and the Pogues' "Greenland Whale Fisheries" top anything on this album.
1273736
This is a stretch. The Chicks were clearly venting there feelings on this one. Most of the songs sound more pop oriented than country, even though that is the category they come under most often.
3126876
A few of the songs on S&A seem like they fit together nicely. Too many of them seem like odds and ends of song ideas stitched together poorly. I'm talking about the music. In this respect it resembles a lot of Test For Echo, an album I listened to once and never again. I call them "Frankensongs" -- a piece of this, a piece of that. Sew it together. It's a song! Not.

The frequent complaint with Geddy's excess harmonizing is valid. It is grating on the ears. Unlike Gordon Lightfoot, a choir of Geddy Lee's is just annoying. Also, I simply don't like the musical intervals he tends to use for harmonization. Further, the harmony vocals clutter the mix unnecessarily. Better a solo voice, especially in Geddy's case.

I loved most of Vapor Trails, apart from the sonic sludginess, because the songs were well-conceived. A better producer could have prodded the boys to make more of the material they had for this album. Perhaps if they had reduced it to ten songs, and smoothed over some of the musical rough edges, I could be more enthusiastic.

Rush has a rich creative legacy. At their age they are entitled to experiment. You are not obligated to like it, or to buy it, though. I heard my friend's copy, and that cured me. I will not buy this. Please, listen before you buy. Otherwise, you encourage them in their mediocrity.

Because most of the album is such a musical turn-off for me, I didn't delve deeply into the lyrics. I find comparisons between the "fundamentalists" of the West with the religion of "convert at the edge of the sword" rather thoughtless. But beyond that, we already know Peart doesn't believe in a higher power. He's self contained, self-sufficient, the New World Man. He needs nothing but "love," but doesn't define that word. But we've heard this about fifty times before, and frankly it is just stale.

That about sums up the album. Some creativity here, no doubt, but not fully-formed, and the message is starting to wear thin.
3266228
The first song of Gabriela Cilmi "Lessons to be Learned" borders on great.  The second song is good.  Both are mixed too loud.  The rest of the album is mixed even louder, to the point that it is unlistenable.  She has a distinctive voice that people will either love or hate, but this album is not fair to her.
1176860
Plenty of songs in this book, including a number of popular singers.  However, I have barely played any of them, and the tunes are not really familiar to me.  For instance, Bruno Mars had Grenade & Just the way you are; LeAnn Rimes has You Light up my Life; Justin Timber Lake has What goes around..comes Around.  Some people might love this book.  It just isn't right for me.
2098218
The mix is okay for a live album from the 70s. But at least 3 songs include lengthy introductions of the band, ruining those songs. Get a studio album, this one's a bust.
2420581
this band has A TON of potential. the music is already there. as for the lyrics, they're a bit..hmm...immature and detract from this good album.
1164765
Too much retuning E string to D.  Not enough original guitar or lute pieces. Too many piano and keyboard pieces.
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699186
I found that moments were amazing (such as American in Paris), but the song arrangements, well, they've been done better by others - for example, Ella's Gershwin Songbook sets a terribly high bar, and Blossom Dearie totally owns Little Jazz Bird.  The guys in this group aren't bad but the reedy tenor(s) and the close harmony eventually numbed my ear like overeating potato chips - after a while you don't notice the flavor.  So I recommend this CD cautiously.
4743454
A lot of songs, but its only the words and not the music scale. Many songs I didn't recognize.