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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
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How Could I Live Without LeAnn Rimes?
This is such a great LeAnn Rimes' album! She has a very beautiful voice and just perfect for these gospel songs. These songs are that kind of you could sing in church. LeAnn Rimes sings with emotion. The song "You Light up My Life" is a great opener and there is very good songs like "The Rose", "Bridge over Troubled Waters" etc. There's no bad song in this album. However, the album has only a few excellent songs, rest of the songs are good but not excellent. I like the lyrics very much but there's something missing. Maybe it is that these songs are covers. However, a great extra for my LeAnn Rimes collection.
Stars: You Light Up My Life, How Do I Live
Rating: 
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It would have helped if she didn't sing too LOUD on this one!
This wasn't a good followup to Blue to me. It would have helped if LeAnn Rimes didn't sing too LOUD on this one! While the emphasis is on inspirational songs, the music comes off as overproduced, overblown and LeAnn tries to pull off her own Celine Dion by overdoing it a third on most of the ballads.
Even the remake of Debbie Boone's overplayed You Light Up My Life comes off as limp. The listening performance comes off as as disturbing and misconceived, not inspiring at all as the album title wants you to believe. It's like LeAnn was pressured to get a record out on the market after the massive success of Blue. Would have been better if she sang an album of new material instead back in 1997.
Rating: 
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You Light Up My Life: Inspirational Songs
The songs on this CD were beautifully put together. I liked the combination of spiritual and patriotic music. It has extremely both uplifting and soul-searching songs. It's the best CD's I've purchased in a long time and I'd definately recommend it for anyone's music library.
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Heavenly
Leannes pure voice sends chills down my spine on this inspirational package of songs. A beautiful selection of songs which comfort ones soul. I actually bought this cd a couple of times because I wore it down from overplay. A true favorite.
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Inspirational Indeed . . .
Every now and again, we discover an artist that goes against our grain of musical "taste" and upbringing. Primarily a hard-rock, pop music fan with an aversion to rap and country, it would seem surprising that I would be doing a review on 15-year-old country sensation, LeAnn Rimes.
Catching this little lady with the big pipes on the Billboard Music Awards back in the fall changed the course of music for me. Trying to catch Aerosmith, a favorite rock group of mine, I came across LeAnn quite by accident. Though she missed her cue to start singing, I was entranced by her voice and the song she had sung (How Do I Live). I took one listen to that song and her voice swept over me, sending CHILLS up and down my spine. When a singer starts sending chills up my spine, then it is more than wise to start doing my research.
My research led to You Light Up My Life . . . Inspirational Songs, which was, by all good-hearted attempts, very hard to find. When I finally got my grubby mitts on a copy, I put it in my CD-player and I not only got so many chills that I though I was coming down with the flu, but it TOUCHED something deep within the very depths of my soul. Tears would form in my eyes and I wouldn't even realize I was crying. It's hard to imagine that a girl of barely 16 could put so much emotion and SOUL into her voice.
You Light Up My Life is primarily what one would call a "cover record", as most of these songs, if not all, were written by someone else and performed previously at some point in time by another artist. Even the pivotal tune, How Do I Live (written by Diane Warren), was performed by country singer Trisha Yearwood. So, what would be the point of such an album? Besides the obvious enjoyment the artist performing it gets from making his or her own interpretation on such songs, I would say there's two reasons in LeAnn's case: The biggest reason would be to showcase this girls incredible, extraordinary, "she-sends-chills-up-my-spine" vocal chops. The second reason would be to provide a very inspirational, if not spiritual, listening experience. The songs that were chosen on this disc were centered around four general themes: Love, Faith, Hope, and the Spiritual -- and there's even some patriotism in there.
The album starts off with two popular songs from the early 80s: You Light Up My Life and The Rose. With her aesthetically soaring vocals on both numbers, she kicks Debbie Boon's butt and gives Bette Midler some serious competition, proving the fact that Ms. Rimes can belt it out with the best of her older counterparts . . . years later. She does the Simon and Garfunkel tune, Bridge Over Troubled Water, next. She does this nicely, and with convincing vigor, but this song is better as a duet.
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The "center" of the album is lesser known material that focuses more on spiritual and religious overtones. I Believe is a short, inspiring sparrow of a song with an uplifting, spiritual message. LeAnn sings this song, hitting the high notes without breaking any mirrors. Ten Thousand Angels Cried is a religious song, which she does with exquisite grace and power. Clinging to the Saving Hand is another song with a religious theme, and it is the most county-oriented on the album. Her voice is smooth on this one, and she sings this one in a lower key, not as concerned with hitting the high octaves.
The next two numbers are favorites of mine, and both are tunes she sings flawlessly. On The Side Of Angels is combing the spiritual with a message of love, and her voice caresses the words like velvet caresses the skin. I Know Who Holds Tomorrow is a gospel number full of hopeful meaning and shows off her vocal calisthenics. Of course, the other highlight is the wedding-song-of-the-year tune, How Do I Live. Without an oodle of a doubt, LeAnn kicks Ms. Yearwood's version into orbit. Her voice is much stronger than Yearwood's and she has a much more unlimited vocal range.
There are three popular anthems on here: God Bless America, Amazing Grace, and The National Anthem (the last two sung in acapella). Out of the three, Amazing Grace is the most . . . well . . amazing. You could be up in the mountains, clouds drifting through your ears, and you'll hear her singing this song -- and what music to the ears it is. The National Anthem is a smart choice, since it's a Superbowl staple for which such pop divas as Whitney Houston have made even more famous. Well, move over Whitney, because LeAnn Rimes is not far behind your tail.
This disc is a blatantly obvious showcase for LeAnn's vocal abilities while providing some uplifting, hopeful material to listen to. It's a beautiful album with beautiful songs, sung by a young lady with a beautiful voice. Not since I've heard Mariah Carey open her mouth and sing have I been struck with such chills over a female singer's voice . . . until now. LeAnn Rimes has the vocal chops to make it against the likes of Ms. Carey, as well as other outstanding female singers, such as Barbara Streisand, Celine Dion, and the aforementioned Ms. Houston. She's up there with the greats, and she's young, so she has a lot of time to move up the scale and gain respectability. Regardless of her age, however, you can't ignore her voice, or her maturity for a girl her age.
What LeAnn really needs is more material written for her. She has three albums at present, and two are cover albums. Her chart-topping, Blue, is the only contender for original material. No one says she has to write her own songs (though it would be a big plus), as Houston, Streisand (though she does have some co-writting input on a few tunes) and Dion do not write their own tunes (Carey is the only exception). She should find a niche of her own, and maybe even consider crossing over to pop territory to test the waters. She's already done that with this disc, as the only song that truly reeks of country is Clinging to a Saving Hand. She may indeed belong to country music, and no one is to say she should abandon her love for it, but if she crossed over to pop, she would make an even bigger splash. Amy Grant has done this by crossing over from gospel to pop, while not totally deserting gospel, and it worked extremely well for her. Like Amy Grant, I believe LeAnn could do it, too, and I predict she'd be successful at it.
With You Light Up My Life . . . Inspirational Songs, LeAnn did what she set out to do: Inspire, not only with the material she chose to sing, but with her talent as well. After all, there has to be something larger-than-life there for this reviewer, who doesn't even care for country music, to consider checking out LeAnn's other dics.
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