Anastacia: Freak Of Nature : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Anastacia's story is almost too weird to be true. The frizzy-haired former wedding singer was discovered on an episode of MTV's short-lived talent contest The Cut, which she sadly did not win. With Michael Jackson's unsolicited support and a thorough a J.Lo-style makeover in 1999 she released a debut album, Not That Kind, that promptly flopped in America, but caught on across Europe. Now she has been shipped back as a fully developed, platinum-certified pop star with 5 million sales worldwide and counting. It's fitting that her homecoming took place at VH1's recent Divas Las Vegas show, alongside the likes of Celine Dion, Cher and Mary J. Blige. The music on Anastacia's second album, Freak of Nature, is pure polish. With producer Rick Wake (Jennifer Lopez, Mariah Carey) overseeing a majority of the cuts, the songs are tempered with as much plucky R&B passion as they are cold hard dollar signs. Anastacia eases off the pummeling power ballads that made up most of her debut, but there are still moments of sheer overkill -- the dated synthesizer funk of "One Day in Your Life" and the grating "Paid My Dues" are obvious offenders. But the sublime acoustic-soul of "Overdue Goodbye" offers valuable respite, while a pairing with Faith Evans -- one of the judges on that fated episode of The Cut -- on "I Thought I Told You That" is tantalizingly triumphant.

AIDIN VAZIRI
(June 18, 2002)