The Good: Good vocals, Decent production, Some enjoyable comparatively unknown songs
The Bad: Very short for the medium, Some less distinct tracks
The Basics: A good, but less distinct, Tina Turner album, Twenty Four Seven holds up better as a musical experience than as individual tracks.
One of the reasons I was so eager to make Tina Turner my Artist Of The Month back in March was that she has been a fairly prolific performer throughout the years and yet, I find myself near the bottom of the stack of c.d.s my local library managed to get in for me staring into the face of a number of Tina and Ike Turner compilations. The last Tina Turner album I had for a while was Twenty Four Seven, Turner's 1999 endeavor. It is a very good pop-rock album and while it is easy to recommend because the best tracks are not ones which have made it onto subsequent compilations, it is not as robust an album as fans of Tina Turner might hope it to be.
Twenty Four Seven starts energetic and it moves into a more mellow series of songs before finishing energized again. This does not make it a bad album, but it does make it less distinct track to track. Actually, as a person who loves albums and tends to deride producers and record companies for just trying to get the two to three hit singles they can out of an artist or performer, Twenty Four Seven does a good job of creating an album with a strong sense of overall mood. The result is I enjoy listening to Twenty Four Seven quite a bit, but I cannot actually pick much out about the album that actually excites me. It's a mellow album and one that has ebbs and flows of energy, a decent sense of production, but it also doesn't leap out into the ear and tell a story or stand out in any meaningful or enthusiastic way.
With only eleven songs occupying 46:58, Twenty Four Seven is an unfortunately short Tina Turner album. Turner did not write any of the songs and what I found troubling was that the album credits list each song's producer before the song's writer! Tina Turner did not produce any of the tracks, but she is credited as a co-executive producer for the overall album. Like most of her albums, Tina Turner provides all of the lead vocals. She does not play any musical instruments on the album.
Instrumentally, Twenty Four Seven is very much a typical Tina Turner album. The album is keyboard dominated and has heavy production, like most albums in the late 1990s. But beyond that, the album uses electric guitars more than most Tina Turner albums. The thing is, on Twenty Four Seven, electric guitars are used as accent instruments much the way brass is used for emphasis on songs in r&b and funk. So, for example, on "Go Ahead," the guitars pop up to accent the singer's declarations, but they do not establish or carry any tune. While guitars are more melodic on "When The Heartache Is Over," more often than not, the songs are keyboard-driven like "I Will Be There" (which was written by the Gibb brothers!).
The keyboard and lighter percussion sound of Twenty Four Seven helps blend the album into a more cohesive whole. Instead of being distinct singles, the album flows from song to song fairly well as the constant keyboards tend to stay in the same mid-range registers to back Turner's vocals. In fact, the only real rapture from the formula is the way the guitars and harmonica burst out on the single Twenty Four Seven.
On Twenty Four Seven, Tina Turner stays more in the lower registers. Songs like "I Will Be There" and "Talk To My Heart" have Turner emoting well and clearly, but not going into the high registers that she has always been capable of traversing. And while she does go soprano and strained for "Without You" and "When The Heartache Is Over," more often than not, she stays in tenor or lower range. What is also distinctive about Turner on Twenty Four Seven is that she tends to pick a range and stay in it within each song. In other words, she does not jump registers or do anything auditorily interesting in any of the tracks with her voice. The result is that the album sounds and feels very safe.
Lyrically, Twenty Four Seven is a great example of how a wonderful vocalist can take ordinary or mediocre poetry and make it soar. Even I have to admit that the rhymes "Talk to my heart / That's where real talking starts / Words of love go straight to my heart / Reach out and touch / A few words say so much / I can hear you when you tell it like it is / When you talk straight to my heart" ("Talk To My Heart") are pretty obvious and occasionally blase. But Turner makes them work and she makes a pretty magical love song with "Talk To My Heart." Love and the loss of love, like "Don't Leave Me This Way," are consistent themes for Turner and this album is no different in that regard.
Still, Turner gets some talented writers to work with and she rocks on songs like "I Will Be There." When she sings "This is the life you save laid out before you / Everything that I think I have been and what I am now / Nothing can change the way I feel about you / Better we go on our separated ways / Nothing is left but the endless days / Nothing to cry but your name / Don't you look back / Don't say a word / I will be lonely for you / I will be standing for you / Don't you despair, I will be there for you" ("I Will Be There") she makes the sentiments articulate and clear. She sings wonderfully about love and the strains it puts on people and Turner is clear and melodic on every track.
Part of the reason Twenty Four Seven works so well is the sense of imagery that is in almost all of Turner's songs. On the single "Twenty Four Seven," she has decent lines like "Twenty four seven, stay with me / Twenty four seven, throw away the key / Twenty four seven, I don't want to be free . . . Two strong hearts have to share one cell" which make clear analogies between love and commitment and imprisonment. The song is energetic and interesting, even if it is a little repetitive. Turner makes it seem less repetitive by relegating the oft-repeated title to backing vocalists.
Ultimately, Twenty Four Seven is a good album by Tina Turner, but it is not one that sparked a lot of singles and listening to it on heavy replay, it's no surprise. But while it might not have overly distinctive tracks, the album feels good to listen to. It is melodic, well-produced and fun. Sometimes, that should be enough, especially from the Queen Of Pop!
The best track is "Talk To My Heart," the low point is the funky, but repetitive "Absolutely Nothing's Changed."
For other works by Tina Turner, please check out my reviews of:
What You Hear Is What You Get: Live At Carnegie Hall - Ike & Tina Turner
The Best Of Ike And Tina Turner – Ike & Tina Turner
The Very Best Of Ike & Tina Turner - Ike and Tina Turner
Private Dancer
All The Best (2-disc version)
Tina! Her Greatest Hits
6.5/10
For other c.d. and music reviews, please visit my index page!
© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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