Last year Luca Brugnoli released his debut album Rise Up. This year he released his second CD, Through My Eyes. Where his debut CD was a mix between classical and cross-over songs, this album is a cross-over album. It contains a mix of songs he released on either Spotify and/or YouTube and songs he hasn’t released so far.
And among the previously unreleased song there were a few surprises. Often it’s hard to pick a favourite song, but in this case I do have a favourite. And to my surprise it isn’t a song from a musical, but a pop song. I love Luca‘s rendition of Bring Me To Life by Evanescence.
Another surprise was Luca doing Bring Him Home from Les Miserables. In the musical it is sung by Jean Valjean, who in the musical then is an older guy. So to hear it in Luca‘s high voice it was definitely a surprise. And it actually sounded good. It was no problem, it was sung in a higher voice. For a song I heard that often, that was a surprise to me.
I always am a strict judge when it comes to covers of songs by The Beatles, but even here I couldn’t complain about Luca‘s version of Let It Be. Okay, I’ve heard other versions of Let It Be before, and the first version I ever heard wasn’t even by The Beatles. It was actually by Ferry Aid (a group of artist raising money for a charity related to the disaster with the Herald of Free Enterprise in the harbour of Zeebrugge).
When I heard Never Enough, for a moment the idea came to mind, that recreating the clip of the song would be fun, since it is The Greatest Showman, but than realised it was sung by Loren Allred. Although Luca in a dress can be fun to watch, better not do that to him for a video clip for a serious song. If Luca really would like to make a video in a dress, he has to pick a different song. It would definitely ruin this song, which he sings so beautiful.
There are two original songs on the CD, My Mama. And the other one is I Am, which he already had released as a single. Both songs are written by Team Ferris (aka Dominic Ferris and his parents Roger Ferris and Glo Marcari).
You’ll Never Walk Alone gives me mixed feelings. On the one hand I love Luca‘s version, on the other hand it’s also connected to the Dutch football (soccer for Americans) club Feyenoord (they don’t use Luca‘s version though), which is in my eyes the wrong club and a big competitor of my favourite football club.
There are two songs which contain Italian lyrics. Even though Luca Brugnoli may sound Italian, Luca is born and raised in England and never learned Italian, until he had to learn it for Parla Piu Piano (from The Godfather). He released it before and then it already sounded great, although I can’t judge his Italian pronunciation, I think he did an awesome job. And the second song with Italian lyrics, is The Prayer (originally a duet between Andrea Boccelli and Celine Dion). Although Luca did great, this song is one of my lesser favourite songs.
That takes me to my least favourite song. It’s hard to say what the reason is, because Luca sang it well and I like the original song. It’s Take On Me (originally ny A-Ha). It isn’t a bad song, just that it isn’t the song I think is meant for Luca to sing.
There’s a song on the CD I didn’t know. It’s Hushabye Mountain. It’s written by the Sherman Brothers, so you’d think it’s from a musical. Well, that’s partly correct. It’s from the musical film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. I can’t remember ever seeing this film, so that explains that I don’t know the song. But Luca did well.
Covering a song by 2 grand dames of the music: Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston. Can Luca pull that or is that a too high goal? Well if you listen to When You Believe, you’ll hear that even that isn’t a too high goal for him. He did a great job on this song too.
That leaves me one song.This is my favourite song all time from a musical. Since Luca already released a live version of him singing this song, I already knew he could nail Memory from Cats. And on the studio version of this song I think he nailed it too. This is a song with so much feeling in it and Luca succeeds in showing that he understands that. For a 13 year old boy it’s hard to imaging being an older woman (or female cat actually), who lost all her glamour, and is rejected by her peers, looking back and remembers how she used to feel. But Luca knows how to bring that feeling across.
To conclude my top 3 of favourite songs from Through My Eyes.
- Bring Me To Life
- Memory
- Never Enough
While preparing for this review I also checked the CD case and booklet and a section to thank the supporters, including me, was added. I do support Luca financially, but not so I can be mentioned on CD cases/booklets, it is so Luca can fund recording the songs he releases. For a young independent artist it’s not easy to do these things using only your own (and your parents) money.
Where to get/listen to Through My Eyes:
Where to find Luca:
