Rachel Platten
Wildfire
Release Date: Jan 1, 2016
Genre(s): Pop, R&B, Folk, Pop/Rock, Adult Alternative Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Contemporary Singer/Songwriter
Record label: RCA
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Album Review: Wildfire by Rachel Platten
Average, Based on 4 Critics
Based on rating 6/10
Rachel Platten's story isn't atypical. After more than a decade toiling away in the trenches of mainstream pop, she finally had her planets align in 2015 and had "Fight Song" -- an inspirational slice of AAA pop in the tradition of Sara Bareilles' "Brave" and Katy Perry's "Roar" -- turn into a genuine phenomenon, the result of good timing and hard work. Other stars of the 2010s followed a similar trajectory, including Perry herself, but in Platten's case, it's hard not to hear the mechanisms at work on her 2016 major-label debut, Wildfire.
Based on rating 2/5
It’s a matter of seconds before the first mention of fixing one’s broken wings arrives on this Boston singer-songwriter’s debut. The album’s backstory – 10 years of open mics and artistic strife – was launched with the spectacular success of Fight Song, a self-empowerment anthem that would soon score a thousand teen dramas. Failed experiments with frivolity aside (the misjudged rhyming couplet “Sing Hallelujah when you touch me / Hallelujah Jeff Buckley” on Hey Hey Hallelujah being one of them), the record soars with a sense of plight and recovery so super-sized in conviction you’d think she was surviving the plague rather than facing the occasional rejection letter from a record label.
Opinion: Average
Newton Center-raised Rachel Platten had one of 2015’s upstart pop hits with “Fight Song,” a steadily determined self-affirmation that filled the Hot 100’s “inspirational smash sung by a woman” quota for the year. (Previous entrants: “Brave,” “Roar.”) On her first major-label full-length, Platten stays the course: The hooks are painted in Technicolor hues, the lyrics employ broad metaphors, and Platten’s steady soprano ties them together. She shines most brightly when she ditches mid-2010s signifiers (gang-vocal “whoa-oh”s, stuttering vocals, the self-consciously “soulful” Andy Grammer, who shows up on the cutesy “Hey Hey Hallelujah”) for restrained singing and relatively unadorned songcraft.
Opinion: Average
It’s difficult to argue with the spirit of Rachel Platten’s “Fight Song,” one of last year’s biggest unexpected pop hits, which bristles with late-1990s optimism filtered through Katy Perry-scale sturm und drang. “This is my fight song/Take back my life song/Prove I’m all right song,” Ms. Platten shouts, lifting herself up from the doldrums and attempting to carry everyone else with her.
'Wildfire'
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