Music That Inspires: Seal

I like Seal.

Not the animal, although I find them cute. I mean the musician Seal. I find his voice fascinating and his music and lyrics full of emotion. Over the last year I have bought most of his albums. I was already familiar with his music, but I did not have any full albums, only a handful of songs featured on soundtracks.

I have all of this studio albums except for the most recent and the two Soul compilation albums. Below are a selection of some of my favorite songs. In case anyone is curious, my favorite album is Human Being. The album did not fair well with critics, however, I enjoy the darker tone of the songs. My second favorite album is Seal: Commitment. The interesting part about both these albums is that Seal wrote them in response to his relationships, the first being with Tyra Banks and the second with Heidi Klum.

I enjoy the power of this song. I think it shows off Seal’s range, particularly with his harmonies. That it is perhaps my favorite part about Seal’s music. His harmonies are fantastic, and half the time that I sing the songs I will only sing the harmonies. This song is a good example of how he layers his vocals, with each track slightly different.

This song has a special meaning because my godson sang this to his boyfriend shortly after they were both kicked out of his boyfriend’s home once he came out to his parents. My godson had his band record several parts of the song — the drums and keyboards — and he and the bassist and other guitarist played their parts live. His boyfriend had no idea it would happen.

The song that no one could ever get right on American Idol. I knew it from Batman Forever. It was one of the few things I liked about the film. Like Prayer for the Dying, I love this song for its harmonies. The bridge of the song is by far the best part. This is one of the songs I told my godson’s band to practice to learn to harmonize better. It is tricky because the harmonies come in off…