So what if the album is more than six months old? I just got it a few weeks ago and I like it. To wit: 
A Grammy nod is usually a warning sign to a contrarian like me, but Corinne Bailey Rae’s nominations for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best New Artist didn’t turn me off – they made me sad, because I didn’t know what a big deal she was when I got my first taste and thought I had her all to myself. I was suddenly back in high school, having finally cornered the girl I’d had a crush on all semester, and she’s really talking to me! We’re totally hitting it off, and when the bell rings I think that we’re the only two people on earth, but she’s already down the hall talking to friends and other guys as I walk away, and I’ve dropped off the radar like John Denver’s Long-EZ.
Corinne Bailey Rae’s self-titled debut is full of intelligent comfort music, complete with themes that have been part of love songs since crooners started crooning. But you can only listen to Carol King sing about disappointment, redemption, and love so many times until you need to hear someone else’s take on the matter. The first few times through Bailey Rae’s inaugural offering were on par with being introduced to Tapestry, and she has made some new songs to transport us to that same ol’ place.
‘Like a Star’ is an inauspicious but not lame start to the record. It’s not a brazen attention-getter, and she doesn’t resort to wrenching melismas and upper-octave squealing to get our attention, which is why I liked it so much and kept listening. From the start, Rae is looking for love, but she’s no floozy; she’s not competing for our attention, just bearing her soul for four minutes at a time in her coy but confident voice. You get the impression that she isn’t even aware of how awesome she is.
‘Put Your Records On’ is a nearly perfect pop song, both as a time capsule of its day, and also a relevant anachronism (records? what?), giving a little something for the kids as well as Old School folks to feast upon. She’s 
talking to all girls, whether they prefer 45’s or downloadss, without the diva call to arms of, ”be yourself, girl - here’s how!” On the contrary, these are the wise words of a woman comfortable with herself and who took her own advice.
There are a few contrived moments (this is award-winning pop music, after all), like she’s trying to make herself more attractive than is womanly possible, but at her most ostensibly honest and believable (which covers most of the album), she’s the girl I’ve always wanted to meet. The occasionally-noticeable British accent doesn’t hurt either. “I’ll be honest - I want you to be mine,” she sings on ‘Breathless’ to a friend-with-potential, and makes a convincing case. Less tension would have rendered the next track ’I'd Like To’ a forgettable throwaway (think Samantha Fox ‘Touch Me’), but her combination of confidence and need is more fetching than an excess of either.
To focus on her sweet and likeable qualities is to ignore that this record has got heart enough to bring us back to the years when soul music earned its title. She not straining to prove that she’s got soul - it comes through with ease - and if her voice wavers, it’s not from weakness, but from an emotional groundswell. She also reminds that the power of soul and R&B lies not in a braggadocio’s self-importance, but in the strength to express absence and longing for what is just out of reach. She wants what she doesn’t have, but you’re not worried that she’ll never find it.
The production crew gets a lot of credit too. One of my favorites, ‘Call Me When You Get This’, starts out like Nelson Riddle doing an arrangement for the Delphonics, and settles into something that Marvin Gaye would have wanted for What’s Going On. Even when the lyrics are at their most basic (”won’t say that I’m falling in love, tell me I don’t seem myself, couldn’t I blame something else?”) the horns, Fender Rhodes (my favorite), and strings arrangements via 1970 lend to them a depth and earnestness that make the simple appear profound. Modern pop and soul singers have covered the gamut of available topics (love, loss, respect, passion), but rare is new life breathed into them that makes them worth revisiting and replaying. Corinne Bailey Rae has done it.
9/10, Capitol
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