Sarah Blasko this weekend – recorded for Mark Lamarr at the BBC on July 31, 2010.
For all the people complaining about the current state of vocalists, how AI and Autotune are turning vocals into displays of non-descript mush and fakery, they are obviously not digging around and finding this new genre of vocalists, whose range and emotion cannot be altered or faked and whose performances are sheer emotion and passion.
Sarah Blasko reminds me a lot of Beth Gibbons, another vocalist whose work is devastating in it’s beauty and pathos. Cut from relatively the same cloth, you might say. Sarah Blasko, like Beth Gibbons has a range and an engaging quality that demands undivided attention (which I’m more than happy to do)
This blurb comes from her website:
Sarah Blasko is as expansive as she is prolific, writing songs that strike with rare immediacy, clarity and purpose. Across a discography of six solo albums – Depth of Field (2018), Eternal Return (2015), I Awake (2012), As Day Follows Night (2009), What The Sea Wants, The Sea Will Have (2006) and The Overture & the Underscore (2004) – and two albums with Holly Throsby and Sally Seltmann as Seeker Lover Keeper – Seeker, Lover, Keeper (2011) and Wild Seeds (2019) – four albums have reached Platinum Sales Status with six debuts in the ARIA Top 10. Sarah Blasko is a three-time ARIA Award winner, 18x ARIA Award nominee, has won the J Award for Australian Album of the Year, and three-times shortlisted for the Australian Music Prize. Her cover of Cold Chisel’s ‘Flame Trees’ (2004) had a resurgence when it was featured in Season 2 of Netflix’s Heartbreak High, spawning a remix by Cub Sport released in June. Sarah Blasko composed the music for Bell Shakespeare’s productions of Twelfth Night (2023) and Hamlet (2008), Sydney Dance Company’s Emergence (2013), has been praised by the likes of Sir Elton John on his visit to James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke.
If you’re a fan, you already know. If you’re just discovering Sarah Blasko – head over to her website and dig around. A little support is always appreciated.
Over to you.
