Freak Of Nature

Besides Ali G wasting his hilarious breath on Frankfurt’s ears, one of the few interesting moments in another vacuous MTV Europe awards show was when Anastacia went onstage to collect her award. It was a spontaneous sort of happiness, which was a welcome relief to the usual spin-doctored emotional range. It actually meant something to her.

She dragged her sister (I actually thought it was her girlfriend at first) up on stage with her, which is unusual for the MTV poseur-fest. And instead of boring us to blisters with a crocodile-tear acceptance speech, she burst into ‘I’m Outta Love’ – her massive hit from the last album.

A whole album of this type of over the top music is a bit much but she has some excellent songs, such as ‘Paid My Dues’, ‘Why’d You Lie To Me’, and the more experimental ‘Overdue Goodbye’.

The real problem areas on this album are when she veers into neurotic-Diva-tantrum-throwing Power Ballads, forever vaunted by the likes of Mariah and Whitney. She undoubtedly has the range to handle those sort of stuff but often less is more.

Note to the good people at her record label: please don’t inflict the power ballads on us as singles in Ireland, and give us ‘Why’d You Lie To Me’ instead.