This review covers the pop track Gloria Estefan – Coming Out of the Dark.
This track was released in 1991 as a single.
The track starts off with a melody and a piano backing it. This is joined by some string elements and some vocals. A guitar does come in shortly after.
When the track reaches the main chorus, some backup vocals come in for brief periods of time. This section is capped off with a rather quiet instrumental section.
From there, the track goes into the next verse. The backup vocals continue to pop up periodically. Shortly after, the main chorus comes in again. The main chorus does repeat with some variances. On the third repeat, the track fades out.
This is one of those tracks that have decent elements, but suffer from pretty fatal flaws. A positive element is the backup vocals combined with the main vocals. With what instruments are backing them, it actually sounds quite good.
The problem here is flow. While a lot of tracks out there to this day employ pulling tracks back and pushing them forward in terms of overall audio levels, this track goes too far in this approach. It goes from a barely audible bongo to a full choir belting out lyrics. Had this track only done this once, it might not have been that big of a deal. This track does this multiple times. As a result, you get that effect of fleeting moments of music. It’s there, then it’s gone. It’s there again, now it’s gone again.
Compounding this problem is the fact that it goes from quiet moments straight into the loudest moments in the track. As a result, it doesn’t really matter what your volume is set at, it’s not going to be a very comfortable experience. If you have your volume setting at a louder one, the quieter parts will become audible, but the louder parts are going to be blaring. Conversely, if you have your volume at quiet, then you’re going to go sit through what sounds like false endings as there is virtually nothing audible in the quiet portions.
Another problem this track has is a lyrical creativity problem. The track starts with an interesting intro, but then only follows up with a single verse. After this, the track simply repeats the main chorus. While it is great to hear variances in the chorus, that’s all this track seems to deliver.
Overall, this is a fairly mediocre track. It has it’s moments during the main chorus. Unfortunately, there is extreme and quick changes between quiet and loud that just doesn’t mesh well with a good listening experience. The very little amount of verse work also didn’t help this tracks cause. So, if you miss this track, you may not be missing much unless you are into sampling snippets of music for other projects.
Score
6/10
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Google+.
