(Pop, Rock, Country, Soul, R&B) Siedah Garrett - Siedah - 2003, MP3 (tracks), 320 kbps

Siedah Garrett (born June 24, 1958) is an American songwriter and vocalist, who has written songs and performed backing vocals for many recording artists in the music industry, such as Michael Jackson, , Quincy Jones, , Donna Summer, , Jennifer Hudson among others. Garrett has been nominated for two Academy Awards for Best Original Song, and has won the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media at the 50th Grammy Awards for co-writing "Love You I Do" (performed by Jennifer Hudson) for the 2006 musical film, .

Garrett is not only a splendid vocalist but also a talented songwriter (she'll live well for years based solely on colleague recording her "Man in the Mirror"), and someone who realized that changing times demand a different style of composition than she'd used 15 years earlier. Unfortunately, from both the songwriting and the musical contexts, Siedah is a record that follows trends instead of capitalizing on them (or, best of all, setting them). Play a song like "What I Know" or "Rise" to any four listeners you'd find at the local Wal-Mart, and you'd probably get four different categorizations for Siedah: is she country or pop or rock or maybe R&B? This record panders to so many different styles and demographics it's difficult to find any personality at all behind these songs. Session veterans and Mike Porcaro ably create the backing tracks, but the arrangements are rigid and never yield to Garrett's songwriting.