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Artist: Guy
Album: Michael Grande - “So Much of What I Wanted”
CD Review: I really liked this CD, but somehow I liked the second half of it much more. The latter songs seemed to be produced more simply and the writing seemed to get stronger almost with each song.

All of the guitar playing is wonderful on every song, whether it be Grande, Jim Henry, Lisa Martin or Duke Levine. Grande’s voice is smooth and warm. He has a nice humor and intelligence in all of his writing, culminating in what in a perfect world would be a monster hit, “Telemarket This!” It's very funny, smart and biting, just like it should be.

“Bonfire Girls” does a wonderful job of capturing the emotion written about in the song. The plaintive guitar and tension in the arrangement expresses his yearning perfectly, kind of like a “Boys of Summer” but about the girls. I also really like the humor in “Modern Marvel”, and the intelligent lyrics in Hurricane Jane.

Grande is a very engaging writer. I do prefer the simpler, edgier sounding arrangements to the smoother more AAA sound in a few of the earlier tracks on the CD. But the writing and playing is solid on every song. “So Much of What I Wanted” is so much of what any pop music lover would want.

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