Two decades into his illustrious career as one of the Netherlands' biggest homegrown pop stars,
Marco Borsato made his feature film acting debut in 2008 with Wit Licht, a Dutch film that he himself developed about child soldiers in Africa, and he released an accompanying album of the same name. While it's not a proper soundtrack,
Wit Licht the album was inspired by many of the same themes that led
Borsato, who is the ambassador of a Dutch NGO involved with children in war-torn regions, to develop the film in the first place. As is customary, all the songs on
Wit Licht are credited to songwriter, composer, and producer
John Ewbank,
Borsato's longtime collaborator. Despite the association with the film and the overarching lyrical themes,
Wit Licht is in many ways a typical solo album by
Borsato. The veteran pop star hadn't released many typical solo albums since the turn of the century, however, favoring instead grand projects such as Zien (2004), a DVD-only album featuring short films for each song, and
Symphonica in Rosso (2006), a live album featuring a 40-piece orchestra. Given the six-year span of time since his last straightforward studio album --
Onderweg (2002), an album so popular, it charted for nearly two years in the Netherlands --
Wit Licht is oddly satisfying in its relative simplicity. Highlights include the chart-topping hits "Wit Licht," "Stop de Tijd," and "Dochters." ~ Jason Birchmeier