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The Sea

Down among the least valuable albums I own is this 2010 CD of Corinne Bailey Rae's second full-length release The Sea. At Discogs the median price for it is currently £1.88, a penny more than the LP of orchestral music by Leos Janáček I wrote about in January, and a penny less than a CD copy of The Very Best Of Prince. In general, soul albums from the latter part of the CD era are cheap as chips: now is a great time to be buying them. In any case, it's another illustration, if any were needed, of the lack of correlation between monetary and artistic value.

My late wife was binge-watching episodes of the show Medium one evening, ca. 2007, while I was busy with something or other at the computer in the next room. During one particlar episode (S3E12: 'The One Behind The Wheel') a brief musical refrain was played very frequently throughout: often enough that it caught my attention. My wife asked me to look up the song in question, which turned out to be CBR's 'Like a Star' - and, in no time, I'd ordered her debut album on CD. Somewhat uncommonly, we both liked it, played it several times, then moved on to other things and forgot about it.

But I didn't forget completely. Despite having parted with that disc, something in the back of my mind kept returning to the songs on it, and I'd seek out Bailey Rae's videos on YouTube. Last year I got around to acquiring another (second-hand) copy of it, and also copies of the this album and The Heart Speaks in Whispers - her third. It doesn't appear to have attracted much critical notice, but this one is my favourite of the three. It's arguably somewhat 'vanilla', but along with the conventional (if excellent) arrangements there are, I think, heartfelt depths: the untimely death of Bailey Rae's first husband had influenced its making, and its songs strike a resonant chord in this widower's heart.

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