Darren Hayes Spin (Roadshow)
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Not sure what else he's been doing since Savage Garden split but I can tell you one thing - Darren Hayes has been getting plenty. Even before we get to the strutting Dirty ("If you want me I can be dirty too"), on Insatiable, the first single from his debut solo album, Hayes doesn't hide his light under a bushel.
With a slow, bedroom-friendly rhythm much favoured by soul boy lovers such as Maxwell and Craig David, and his voice occasionally hitting falsetto (it's a passion thing, you know), Hayes finds himself waiting to "practise love between the sheets" and "taste every drop". And why wouldn't he when "moonlight plays" upon his lover's skin? So soon "we move together up and down" and things clearly go swimmingly because "we levitate, our bodies soar, our feet don't even touch the floor" and "I grow stronger in your hands".
Phew. Or maybe even phwoar. After that you would need a shower. Anything, really, except the unfortunate next track, Heart Attack, which is the closest to the (admittedly, polite) rock edge Daniel Jones was using on Savage Garden's second album, and it sounds frighteningly like Michael Jackson's recent attempt to resurrect some of his past glories. It's one of the album's noticeable failures, along with Dirty, because Hayes, like Jackson, is not "bad" enough to pull it off. He's better off in his natural milieu, either gently arriving ballads or smooth R&-inflected pop, such as the more successful Jackson-influenced The Heart Wants What It Wants. The ballads are here in numbers, of course. I Miss You, Like It Or Not and the album's opening track, Strange Relationship, sound as if Jones never left. I Can't Ever Get Enough Of You is exactly the kind of wet song the title suggests and Good Enough, with some wry and clever lyrics as well as the usual soppiness, has the requisite swaying appeal and rich, double-tracked vocals. Producer Walter Afanasieff tries his hand at a few suggestions of experimental (for this artist) rhythms, but there's no Craig David-like two-step here or any streetsmarts from the Neptunes or Rodney Jerkins, either; this is safe ground. More importantly, Afanasieff is smart enough to leave Hayes's best asset - his voice - alone. With those occasional falsetto moments being ever-so-slightly earthily croaky in What You Like, hot and bothered in Insatiable and generally pretty, there's no question Hayes gives you what you want if Savage Garden rang your bells. |