Different

Album Review

After a couple of moderate hits in her home country, Belgian singer/songwriter burst onto the international scene with two cover versions of classic hits by French diva Mylène Farmer. "Désenchantée" and "Libertine" are both effective modern dance-pop reinventions of Farmer's '80s hits, and hit the charts all over Europe. A pretty blonde singer with a pleasant but unremarkable voice, Kate Ryan could easily have gone the way of any number of anonymous dance vocalists. However her debut album yielded a number of further hits, including the self-penned "Mon Coeur Résiste Encore" and "(UR) My Love." A glimpse at the album's liner notes reveals that Ryan has a writing credit on 11 of the 16 tracks on Different, including two solo compositions. The music on the album is fairly standard turn of the century Euro dance. The singles are all good, "Mon Coeur Resiste Encore" and the cover of "Désenchantée" are outstanding, but an abundance of filler and samey production renders the album less than essential. Nevertheless it sold over a quarter-of-a-million copies worldwide and established Ryan as a promising new star.