EMI is particularly aggressive, it seems, in coming up with stratagems like marketing the English boys choir
Libera. Twenty four voices strong, the boys, who reportedly range in age from 7 to 16, "meet together at a church in South London (and) come from a wide range of backgrounds." EMI would be happy for us to believe that the multi-ethnic boys of
Libera gather for promoting the cause of peace alone, with no recourse to adult involvement. "With shimmering, mystical chords and ecstatic harmonies, they are unlike any group you have ever heard," coos the hype. Indeed,
Libera does not sound like
Les Petits Chanteurs du Mont-Royal, often said to be the best boy choir in the world, as
Libera is not singing that standard kind of material. Yet take away the slick synthesizers, electronic drum machines, and canned mannerisms and you have, um -- a boys choir. Taking another cue from publicity, we are told they think of themselves as "an alternative kind of boy band" rather than choirboys. So we are to think of them in the same breath with, say, Menudo as opposed to
Les Petits Chanteurs. Sigh.
Libera does, nonetheless, have a couple of adult Svengalis lurking in the background; namely, producers Robert Prizeman and Ian Tilley. Prizeman is the primary composer and arranger of this stuff, the majority of which is cynical, slick, and generic. A few wan live instruments are listed in the liner notes, but they are not heard well in Prizeman's thick, synthesizer soup, which sometimes drowns a few of the boys in its broth as well. When
Libera sings alone, as in the first two-thirds of Be Still My Soul arranged after Sibelius' Finlandia, it sounds pretty good -- perhaps not mystical or ecstatic, but pleasant singing in a multiplicity of well-harmonized parts taken from a mixture of single voices. Then the synth comes thundering in and you are back at what seems to be the opening ceremonies of the 2004 Greek Olympics, except that screaming boys are being rolled up and flattened out in a gigantic conceptual tarpaulin. Some of Prizeman's songs -- such as Salva me, Voca me, and I Am the Day -- are just awful; bad lyrics and mutilated Latin set to Euro synth-pop straight from the Tesco Disco.
The packaging is interesting -- one folds out the single sheet that divides into six panels to see every face in the choir as an individual, though one wonders why an EMI album titled Angel Voices is not on the Angel label, which EMI owns -- one smells a missed opportunity there. EMI Classics might be thinking that Angel Voices will be a good album for kids, the sort of wholesome thing that is both good for them and something they can identify with, like
the 5 Browns. But Angel Voices seems more likely to attract the interest of adults; mainly, ones with the wrong kinds of intentions.