The morning after

A Canadian among the R&B elite is rare, but more a compliment to Deborah Cox. In this ballad-filled album, she steps out in a new direction.

Considering that she has established herself among the few divas that write and co-write their own songs. 

The music is what her fans will remember but the occasional rump-shaker adds spice. Nice to break the boring melody that surrounds a ballad-filled album. Up & Down, the fore-runner, is an uptempo R&B track more like what the American artists produce. What surprises is that it sounds a bit like ethnic too. The Jadakiss Mixed version is much better, more electronic as per R&B tradition.

The strumming of the ovation guitar makes '2 Good 2 be true' interesting. The title song, 'The Morning after' has a quick waltz-like beat, more like a six-eight with lyrics that results in some soul searching. 'Starting with you' has a touch of the Spanish music scale. Mr. Lonely is really good. More club-like and essential dance music. What follows is 'Absolutely Not' keeping up the beat and doing a good job. The last two add the vibe.

The accompanying Remixed Cd has different remixes of Mr. Lonely and Up & Down emphasising where Deborah wants them to go - the dance club - a trend set by most american R&B artists. The Hex Hector and Max Quayle combination works its way within the tracks. Hector was 2001's Grammy Remixer of the year and Quayle's keyboarding is worth watching out for.

Must say that this album has everything for everyone - it can be safely classified as an Up & Down album. But you'll need to be very big fan of R&B to really love this one. I'm not - I just liked the remixes.