Review: Clint Black Misplaced His Mojo

Clint Black – Love Songs

When Clint Black announced that he was re-recording some of his bigger love song hits for a new album, he opened himself up for critiques. We wanted to find out if there were any significant differences and why he chose to re-record the songs instead of using the originals. So we picked three songs from the new album that we felt like were the biggest hits, listened to both the old and new versions, and then played both versions on top of each other using two separate computers.

• Something That We Do
  There’s not as much crying from the steel guitar in the new version, and it shows. It’s also forty seconds longer, depending which previous album you’re comparing it to.
• When I Said I Do
  Almost identical to an earlier recording of the same song, except with less emotion and a more drawn out ending.
• Like The Rain
  The old version begins with rain sound effects that are absent in the new version. The new version is considerably slower and has more thunder sound effects at the end whereas the old version has more rain effects.

I prefer the older versions to the newer ones. In the older versions Black has more emotion in his voice, he has a little more twang that’s absent in the newer renditions, Brady calls it the Clint Black Mojo. Without it the songs fall flat, they don’t have the same punch that they used to. It’s a subtle difference, but it makes you wonder whether it was a conscious decision by Black or his label to update his sound to fit the mold.

• I’ll Have To Say I Love You In A Song
  This is the only new song on the album, and it’s a cover of a Jim Croce original. I actually like this song and think it’s a perfect song for Clint Black, but once again it ends up coming out a little flat without the usual Clint Black Mojo. The accompanying background music doesn’t help either, it sounds more like a Kenny Chesney/Uncle Kracker beach duo than the kind of stuff that the fans are used to from Black.

If someone were interested, it wouldn’t be too hard to build your own playlist using iTunes or Rhapsody with the old version of each of the songs. But then again, the occasional listener probably wouldn’t notice the difference very much anyways. Despite my mediocre review of the album, I still like Black as an artist and wish him continued success in the future.