I am a little confused as to how and when Enya decides to release her CDs. Her best album, Watermark, is nearly 13 years old, and unlike most female vocalists who have been around for at least that long (Madonna comes to mind), she has released very few albums. At a glance, it seems she releases an album only every four years or so. I only wish she would release her beautiful songs more often.
Nonetheless, her new album, A Day Without Rain, released last fall, is definitely full of good songs and good moods. The uniqueness associated with Enya’s music centers on the idea that her music is playable all the time. Granted, it isn’t really dance music, but it is certainly music you can drive to, sleep to (please not at the same time), or read to. Music today seems to revolve more around culture and beat, but Enya is able to portray much more feeling and emotion in a different kind of music than the normal hard-rocker everyone is used to.
For those of you completely oblivious to the music of Enya, download “Only Time,” a track guaranteed to be familiar, but still a song quite unlike any of her others. It’s a strange combination of “Orinoco Flow” (a song from Watermark) and that really ridiculous Celine Dion bit from Titanic (everyone knows it from that stupid DiCaprio flying scene).
Her songs never lack that typical Enya grace, although it is very difficult to explain that grace in terms of her style. Her voice has always been unique, as she often uses a very high pitch with an echoed harmony.
“Tempus Vernum” is a great track, with a string beat reminiscent of a strong storm on the ocean (not that I understand one word of the lyrics; this track is all in Latin). Enya brings English, Latin and, quite often, Irish Gaelic to life in her songs, as the words flow strongly with the classical beats she often composes herself.
Unfortunately for Enya, I read the fine print, and it was a big disappointment to see that on this album, as with many of her others, she put all of her effort into composition, and left the lyrics to a contemporary.
However, she succeeds at putting together yet another album with a number of songs to allow you to relax while studying. My usual hip-hop fanaticism is downplayed when I study because of the loudness and the quickness of the music. Studying requires the classical Mozart or the new Enya as a backdrop.
Disappointingly, this album runs only 11 tracks, for a total of about 35 minutes. When a musician takes a couple of years to compose an album, you should be able to expect quantity as well as quality. Sure enough however, A Day Without Rain is yet another Enya album that does not lack quality, and it is a CD both the avid Enya listener and the frustrated Donlon freshman studier can enjoy.
Archived article by Josh Plotnik