UPDATE: : Seal Confirms Heidi Klum Pregnancy
You’d think being married to supermodel Heidi Klum would mean that some of her fashion sense has rubbed off on her singer hubby, Seal.
Nope.
At Radio City Music Hall Thursday for a lone performance, the balladeer not only committed fashion suicide by wearing a sleeveless shirt ‘n’ vest combination, his song selections swung wildly from vintage soul to Brit-pop — having the jarring musical effect of mixing stripes and plaid.
Seal has been MIA from the concert scene for a few years, so this return gig was welcome, especially since it was in support of one of his best albums ever — “Soul,” a disc of Motown/R&B standards.
He made you feel the thunder and lightning of “Knock on Wood” and his cover of Sam Cooke’s civil rights anthem, “A Change Is Gonna Come,” was stunning. The only thing that could have made these tunes better would have been real, honest-to-gospel backup singers and puffy-cheeked brass blowers instead of pre-recorded tracks.
But the very goodness of those songs emphasized the blandness in much of his own songbook, with the exception of the obvious hits such as “Kiss From a Rose” and “Crazy.”
Still, Seal was able to pull of a generally good show because he is a powerful, emotive singer who has the good sense to have hired a very tight backing trio.
If this concert showed anything, it was that Seal should consider culling all the yawners out of his set and use his exceptional vocal powers on nothing but grade-A numbers. It’s what the greats such as Joe Cocker and Tony Bennett do with incredible success.
Seal is at the crossroads; he could either join the ranks of the legendary interpreters or continue on his current path and eventually slip into irrelevance, crooning out-of-fashion original pop.