Sophie B. Hawkins - Whaler

Found a long lost friend

Still have Whaler on cassette, but seldom have opportunity to play it. This CD is like finding a long lost friend ... great artist, great songs, and excellent CD condition. September 23, 2008

not as great as her debut, but still 5 stars for sure

Sophie B Hawkins doesn't really fit into any specified musical category. She does pop, rock, ballads, keyboards, driving rhythmic drumming and precussion... it's just plain good music - with incredible lyrics and passionate vocals. Her second release, Whaler, is more mellow than her debut, Tongues and Tails, yet just as powerful. My favorite tracks include Right Beside You, As I Lay Me Down, Did We Not Choose Each Other, and Don't Tell Me No. September 6, 2008

Sohpie's Best

This CD is great. It is overproduced, but it works. There are so many hooks in this CD and the message of the lyrics is timeless. There are few CDs that you can put on and not be able to tell what "era" it came from and this is one of them. It still rings true to this very day. It's romantic, it's bitter, it's sexual and personal. A must have for anyone's collection. I personally feel that Sohpie has not made anything quite to this standard since. This CD, Tounges and Tails and Timbre are all you need. January 25, 2007

Whaler

I love this CD!!! The song True Romance WOW!! The owrds are so powerful I makes me remember what I was doing that exact day I heard it for the first time. Who I was with and where I was in my life. I hadn't heard it in YEARS I'm talking 8-10 years and it still gives me goosebumps!! And to remember those times. She is great and everyone should have this CD!!! April 13, 2006

A whale of an album for romantics

Sophie Ballantine Hawkins made quite a stylish volte-face with her sophomore effort, Whaler. Gone were the hauntingly ethereal synths that marked Tongues and Tails. Instead, one got bits of dance pop and stylish ballads which effectively served for some quality vocal delivery from SBH. And the songs here are more romantic and optimistic compared to T&T, with some soaring vocals put to good use over some somewhat exotic albeit indulgent synths I've never seen since Heart's Ron Nevison-produced albums!

The highest charting single was the sweet lullaby-like ballad "As I Lay Me Down," peaking at #6, and spending six long weeks atop the Adult Contemporary Charts. Airy synths accompany the keyboards and guitars to create a more radio-friendly sound. Having said that, it's a mystery why other singleworthy tracks flopped.

Possible answer: "It's not a matter it's a matter of taste," raps Sophie in the bridge's monologue of the opening track, "Right Beside You" opening with exotic space-age synths and keyboard fills, and techno beat that would've been right at home on a Human League or Pet Shop Boys album, with some frantic accompaniment by Sophie. #54 is way too low for a song that deserved Top 5 status.

The life-affirming "The Ballad of Sleeping Beauty," also known as "Only Love," made it to #49, a number of mid-paced energy, is another 80's-like synth number with Sophie's distinctive stylings, rapid-fire subconscious lyrics in the prechorus, and catchy choruses: "only love can purify, only love can conquer fear, only love can make a miracle of life." The rapid-fire material does include all the cycles one goes through-"I want the loss I want the pain I want to start my life again", and the many personas embodied with a woman: "I am the child I am the whore I am the wild woman at your door" In looking at the original lyrics, I see she substituted "you effed with my head, you effed with the dead, now I'm gonna eff with you" with "you messed etc." Curious.

But it was the sheer danceability of "Don't Don't Tell Me No." A truly romantic number, tender at times, oozing of that naïve spring love. It's that rapid-fire layered echoing vocals going "never let it go" near the end that really get me, but also some innuendo: "this is our world awaiting for the sweetest penetrating love we have found. Why can't we splatter it around and around?" Whoa! Another on the same line is "Let Me Love You Up" where she incorporates some breathy yet playful French lyrics.

A primeval jungle-like theme, with horn flourishes and some funk is prominent in "Swing From Limb To Limb" of going back to nature in terms of love, doing it like the monkeys in the jungle. The tearfully romantic ballad "True Romance" truly highlights Hawkins' vocals, consisting of airy synths, keyboards without any drum machines. Another highlight of this album. "Sometimes I See" sports a loungy jazz sound.

The heaviest song in terms of theme is "I Need Nothing Else," where the rough and tumble and yet the softer side of love is explored, and how the protagonist accepts both-"in you I see the brightest star that burns inside me and breaks my heart." The yin to the yang, in other words.

This was on heavy play at the music store where I worked, and its highlights really grew on me. I wonder if people who expected Tongues and Tails Part II-The Next Day were incensed and decided to use this CD as a coaster or Frisbee. Not me, as I'm still touched by this album to this day, which is for tried and true romantics. November 11, 2005

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