Next up, some Brighton-based soul fit for cabarets, coffeehouses, really any venue that begins with the letter ‘C’…
[Video]
[5.33]
Katie Gill: What a beautiful, dreamy song. The combination of Celeste’s vocals and those beautifully sparse strings make a product that seems tailored solely to piano bars and not to any other actual performance spaces. But hey, I’m okay with coffeehouse chic.
[7]
Iain Mew: Celeste is the winner of the Brits’ newly renamed Rising Star award, which has a better track record than Sound of… victory for predicting commercial success. It makes sense on the basis of “Strange,” which doesn’t sound like someone with potential but like the complete article. Its assurance and confidence is a big part of what makes it enjoyable to listen to as well, as Celeste takes a straightforward observation and gives it the space and velvety depth to make it into something more.
[7]
Kylo Nocom: She sings the word “smoke” like she’s begging for somebody to call her smoky-voiced. This isn’t even the best miserable sub-Simone breakup ballad of 2019, but it functions exactly as it’s meant to.
[6]
Michael Hong: The video suggests a certain fiery passion but the actual song itself falls short. Vague lyricism, Celeste’s smoky voice that often drops to a mumble, and the dramatic instrumentation that builds to nowhere, “Strange” paints the picture of sedated lounge singer for an empty audience.
[3]
Katherine St Asaph: One more name crossed off the mononymic blah-soul list! The existence of Celeste implies the existence of a Daphne, whose music would probably be more fun and less breathy, dreary Nina-via-Norah cabaret.
[3]
Joshua Minsoo Kim: Celeste doesn’t sell this story of friends-turned-lovers-turned-strangers — the arrangement does the heavy lifting; it’s the faint strings, carrying the quiet and lonesome mourning of lost love, that make this emotive. “Strange” feels incomplete though, like we’ve stumbled into a soliloquy and walked out before all was said.
[4]
Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: The croak of Celeste’s voice and the staid balladry of the piano pair nicely — it’s pleasant without fully descending into lullaby territory. Yet the song itself goes nowhere, content with an “isn’t it weird how breakups go?” observation that’s just melancholy small talk where there’s ample room to explore more interesting material.
[5]
Brad Shoup: It’s as if she’s been singing it for a decade, and she wrote it several decades prior. The strings certainly seem familiar with it: they murmur in support while still holding their voicings. For all its torch-song sturdiness, “Strange” contrasts a fairly blasé chorus with verses full of harm and suspicion. The stillness, then, turns out to be more of a laying low, waiting for the breathing to become snores.
[7]
Alfred Soto: To sing as if it’s taken decades to blow your voice is some parlor trick, and Celeste tries to inject feeling between the words and the crinkles. I don’t buy the hook, though: it’s not strange how people change from friends to lovers. Happens all the time.
[6]