[.ca] Rapture

From Amazon.co.uk:
Soul has been through a lot of changes of late and if there seems to be an oversupply of young divas-in-waiting today, you can probably thank Anita Baker for it. Baker was one of the few singers that bridged the old school to the new, and this 1986 album was--and is--a true soul classic. An inspiration for everyone from Whitney Houston to Toni Braxton, Baker carved the way with soaring vocals and an effortless style on tracks like "Sweet Love" and "You Bring Me Joy". "Caught Up in the Rapture" was the anthem for many a lovestruck couple, and Baker sums it up best herself in the same song: "Nothing else can compare." --Rebecca Wallwork

nice:
Anita,very good singer with a deep voice. Very nice album that all ages can appriciate.

The Definiton of R & B:
The title says it all...."Rapture" as defined by Webster.."A mystical experience in which the spirt is exalted to a knowledge of divine things"...and listening to Mrs. Bakers vocals thats exactly how i feel ever time i play this cd...a must have....some of the youngsters singing today should take a listen and a lesson

Lady B-The Lady Can SING!!:
This was the first of the cassettes that I bought of Anita Baker. (I call her Lady B, because the title Lady is a royal title.)She puts her heart in all of her songs and adds her personal touch with her octaves. Her videos give her songs an added flair that makes her my favorite R & B singer. Sweet Love stands out in this album.

Aptly titled:
I asked my mother to buy this album for me one day while she was out, and I have never regretted it. Anita Baker has a voice like no other singer alive, instantly recognizable, full of beauty and elegance. She really knows how to make you feel a song: we feel the emotional desperation in her voice as she pleads with a lover she's wronged to return to her in "No One In The World," and we feel the joy coursing through her veins in the exuberant "Sweet Love," the song that introduced Ms. Baker to the mainstream pop audience in 1986. That song, along with three other singles, "Caught Up In The Rapture" (the ULTIMATE slow jam, bar none), "No One In The World," and "Same Ole Love," established her as a multi-format star - they all hit the top 10 on the R & B and Adult Contemporary charts and cracked the pop top 50. Even the cuts that weren't singles are terrific, with "Mystery" and "You Bring Me Joy" being my favorites. All of the songs have a soft, elegant magic, and Ms. Baker injects them with lots of soul. It's a winning combination. Although she hasn't quite achieved the same heights of fame as Whitney, Celine or Mariah, she can easily outsing any of them without having to "spice up" her vocals with lots of unnecessary, gimmicky octave-jumping and she doesn't overdo it with the vocal gymnastics. Anita is still a core artist on most "smooth jazz" stations, as is another unique and beautiful talent who came on the scene shortly before she did, Sade. Both are among my favorite artists. The only thing that annoys me about both of them is their practice of making their fans wait an eternity for their next album! (Case in point: it's been nearly four years since Sade's "Lovers Rock" came out.) Fortunately, we'll finally be seeing a new album from Anita - her first in a decade, not counting the greatest-hits CD - later this year, and the first single, "You're My Everything," is now playing on smooth jazz and urban-adult radio stations everywhere. And let me tell you, she hasn't lost one bit of the magic that made her such a big star in 1986. Get this one if you love jazzy soul, soft pop, or just great music.

A Modern Day Classic:
In the middle of a synthesizer-filled, glammed-up, yuppie-crazed decade, Anita Baker released of the era's most brilliant, compelling and popular albums, RAPTURE. With their mutual musical charm and simplicity, both the singer and her songs became one, making for an album that has dated MUCH better than most of its contemporary releases. One of the many determining factors that separates a good album from a great one is the amount of "filler"- tracks that are decent, but nothing truly special. RAPTURE may be brief by today's CD standards, but this brevity allows it to be astonishingly consistent- there is NO filler here. The fact that virtually EVERY track on the album received airplay on either pop, R & B or jazz stations is a testament to that. As a whole, the songs have a cohesiveness that plays well- no song sounds foreign from the others, yet each possess an individual identity. ALL of them are highlights, perhaps the cream of the crop being the title track, an immensely joyful excerise in smooth R & B music. Baker herself is in peak form- the interpretations are done with a flair that only she could provide. Fully recommended- an album that should be in every music lovers collection...

• Sweet Love
• You Bring Me Joy
• Caught up in the Rapture
• Been So Long
• Mystery
• No One in the World
• Same Ole Love
• Watch Your Step