Centre Stage

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
"Can you feel the lo-o-o-o-ve tonight?" Michael Ball asks in the song of the same name. One thing's for sure: We can definitely feel the full impact of his vibrato. And maybe that's what makes him one of Britain's most popular musical-theater singers. Packed with ballads, Centre Stage features songs pulled mostly from contemporary blockbusters such as Aida, Les Miserables, Blood Brothers, and Riverdance. Ball isn't the best Sondheim interpreter, but his relatively low-key take on ABBA's "The Winner Takes It All" is surprisingly effective. Like Linda Eder and Sarah Brightman, he's a crossover artist, equally at ease on the West End and Broadway and in Las Vegas. Rent's "Seasons of Love" is the best example of this strategy. The synth-heavy arrangements get close to the cheese zone at times, but Ball's power pipes mostly overcome them. The album's centerpiece is the delirious title song from Phantom of the Opera, a duet with Lesley Garrett. It comes across like old-school Queen trying its damnedest to write a Broadway hit. It's so over the top, so flamboyantly bombastic, that only a terminal snob wouldn't love it. Or at least crack a smile. --Elisabeth Vincentelli

Album Details
Ball is Right at Home with These Songs as his Stardom Came as a Result of his Stage Career. He Stretches Out a Bit with Songs from "Phantom of the Opera","a Little Night Music","The Lion King" and Many More.

Tracks:

Every Story
Can You Feel The Love Tonight
The Boy From Nowhere
Lift The Wings
Not While I'm Around
The Phantom Of The Opera
Music Of The Night
The Winner Takes It All
Seasons Of Love
Bring Him Home
Tell Me On A Sunday
Immortality
Send In The Clowns
Tell Me It's Not True

Amazon.com

"Can you feel the lo-o-o-o-ve tonight?" Michael Ball asks in the song of the same name. One thing's for sure: We can definitely feel the full impact of his vibrato. And maybe that's what makes him one of Britain's most popular musical-theater singers. Packed with ballads, Centre Stage features songs pulled mostly from contemporary blockbusters such as Aida, Les Miserables, Blood Brothers, and Riverdance. Ball isn't the best Sondheim interpreter, but his relatively low-key take on ABBA's "The Winner Takes It All" is surprisingly effective. Like Linda Eder and Sarah Brightman, he's a crossover artist, equally at ease on the West End and Broadway and in Las Vegas. Rent's "Seasons of Love" is the best example of this strategy. The synth-heavy arrangements get close to the cheese zone at times, but Ball's power pipes mostly overcome them. The album's centerpiece is the delirious title song from Phantom of the Opera, a duet with Lesley Garrett. It comes across like old-school Queen trying its damnedest to write a Broadway hit. It's so over the top, so flamboyantly bombastic, that only a terminal snob wouldn't love it. Or at least crack a smile. --Elisabeth Vincentelli

Album Details

Ball is Right at Home with These Songs as his Stardom Came as a Result of his Stage Career. He Stretches Out a Bit with Songs from "Phantom of the Opera","a Little Night Music","The Lion King" and Many More.

Customer Reviews:

Just Like Chocolate-Very Smooth.......2007-01-22

I was lucky enough to be given the Centre Stage CD as a gift. Thank you to Scott for as wonderful and thoughtful gift. Michael is just fabulous and I particularily love his redition of Bring Him Home....one of my favourites. Michael does belong Centre Stage.

micheal ball.......2006-11-05

He's one of the greatest singers ever.
Not all of his songs are good choices for him.

Micheal Ball's best collection of show tunes to date.......2004-02-14

Michael Ball created the role of Alex Dillingham in Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Aspects of Love," which meant he was the first to record "Love Changes Everything." As a singer-actor Ball appeared in West End productions of "Les Miserables" and "Phantom of the Opera," but has predominantly become a recording artist and concert performing. After his 1998 album "Musicals" and came out with "Centre Stage" in 2001, which offers another exploration of the songs of Broadway. This album is the better of the two and that might owe as much to the song selection as it does to the additional three years of experience singing such songs.

There is a trio of Lloyd Webber songs, with a duet of "Phantom of the Opera" with Lesley Garrett setting up "The Music of the Night," just as it does in the show, and a surprisingly sedate version of "Tell Me on a Sunday." Stephen Sondheim pops up twice with "Not While I'm Around" and "Send in the Clowns." Actually there is quite a bit of pop on the album which opens with a pair of tracks from Elton John-Tim Rice shows and has songs by ABBA and the Bee Gees that made it to Broadway efforts based on their work. But the songs that really stand out on this album tend to be from the next generation of Broadway song writers, "The Boy From Nowhere" from "Matador," "Seasons of Love" from "Rent," and "Tell Me It's Not True" from "Blood Brothers." If you get the feeling that Ball sings more as himself and not as the characters and that his singing reflects a more British sensibility than you are accustomed to hearing in American musical theater, I would not disagree. But taken on those terms this is a solid collection of show tunes.

Not another over the top CD.......2004-01-24