The MOAM song review, first impressions and afterwards

Confession time: The first time I got my Measure of a Man CD in the mail from Amazon sometime in mid-February of 2004, I listened to it and went WTF? The Clay Aiken I had just heard on my TV singing "Invisible" and "The Way" on Saturday Night Live had a far more rich and textured voice than what I was hearing on the record. Not that it was bad, and in fact probably far more listenable than most other CDs I've subsequently acquired, just not the same energy as Live!Clay--a problem I hope will be rectified on the next CD.

Songs I didn't care much for initially: "No More Sad Song" (what's with the lack of "s"?, even Clay would tack it on there sometimes). Listening to it back now and watching some of the old videos, I do appreciate it as the most rock-edged of the album tracks, however. I was also trying to figure out what these pseudo-Christian songs "I Will Carry You" and "Measure of a Man" were saying and if they were in fact actually Christian. I, incidentally, do not happen to be of the Christian faith and at first these songs kind of bothered me. I have since gotten over this; MOAM won me over pretty quickly for being so pretty, and though I never really got into "rocking" IWCY, when Clay did an acoustic piano rendition on Oprah I loved it:

Songs that were okay to me initially: "Invisible" and "The Way," which I loved on TV but came across a little flat on the record, but I'll always have positive associations with these songs as the first to introduce me to Mr. Aiken. "Shine" was quirky though I wasn't sure what to make of the lyrics. "Run to Me" didn't stick out in my brain at all in the first listen, but it's really become a favorite of mine since the melody is quite pretty and Clay's voice is incredible on this one. It's clearly a very challenging song and he couldn't sing it live without major vocal strain on his first tour, but when he worked it out for the solo tour in 2004, he sounded absolutely amazing and heartfelt. It's quite possibly now my favorite song on the album. Since there's no TV performance of this song and I'm too lazy to look for a good concert video, here's one that's already up on Youtube of RTM:


My favorite initial songs: "This is the Night," "When You Say You Love Me," and "I Survived You." TITN is the song that sounds most like Clay in these album track due to production. Not sure what I think of the cheesetastic lyrics, but I like that this sounds like him, and I nearly always like piano ballads. WYSYLM is a catchy little ditty, I always thought it should have gone to radio, even though it's probably the lest challenging song to sing--Clay frequently zones out and forgets the words on this one because the vocals don't require his concentration. He never took it very seriously in concert, talking on the phone to fans or bringing them up on stage to dance. writer of the song, Savage Garden's Darren Hayes, recording it for himself in Australia and it became a #1 hit. As for "I Survived You," I didn't know about the "damned" situation at the time of Clay's not wanting to sing "I'll be damned if ..." and it had none of the growly hotness that Clay performs the song now with in concert, but I still really liked it. Of course, now I love it exponentially more with the long held note and the growls. I flip-flop sometimes between RTM and ISY as my favorite performance songs overall, as I think they highlight his range best. Here's a lovely performance of ISY on Good Morning America:


Songs that made me WTF: Touch. So totally unlike the remainder of the record it's unclear why it was on there. I didn't mind the song though, it has a nice beat. I guess Clay doesn't care for it though, since he's never sung it live, so no video for this section!

Oops, it occurs to me that I forgot "Perfect Day." I always forget that song. :P

Tags: Clay Aiken, Measure of a Man, CD review