Tarkan Album: “Come Closer”

Tarkan delivers a quality set of slick Turkish music vibes fused in RnB, hip hop and pop.

When I first heard that Tarkan was going to jump into the urban genre with his first English language album I went "OH NO!" There's only so much sex implied/foreplay lyrics that one album can handle, and the lack of variety can ultimately prove fatal.

Yet, this album shows how much Tarkan knows his stuff, because he hasn't fallen into the same trap that many urban artists do.

This makes "Come Closer" a solid enough collection of slow jams, and modern beats, with just the right amount of sex added in as spice.

Filled with sexy tales of flirtation "I'm Gonna Make You feel Good" and "Mine", and fatal attractions "Just Like That" and "Shikidim", you might, at first glance, expect Come Closer to be devoid of serious messages. Not a chance; songs like "Come Closer" (calling out "for a thread of peace and a seed of hope"), and "Mass Confusion" (Tarkan sings "I'm overanalyzed, digitized, terrorized, Over merchandised, paralyzed") gives us a deeper insight to how this singer's mind clicks.

His serious points - particularly on songs such as "Over" (a Spanish flavoured ballad about lost love), "Come Closer", "Mass Confusion" and "If Only You Knew" give out deeper messages of the world today and how we should try harder to unify with each other and ourselves.

A surprise bonus is the addition of Fugee's Wyclef Jean lending his rap to Tarkan's vocals on track three: Why Don't We.

Tarkan is quality. He seems to get better and better with every new album. Though I have to say that I don't EVER want him to stop singing in Turkish, but this album is a best buy.

The album asks the world to come closer, to unite as one, with humanity as much in harmony as Tarkan's songs are diverse.

I have the album on loop. I think I've listened to each song over hundred times, and to my favourites at least thirty forty times a day. And with each listening, the songs work deeper into you. The album has 15 tracks, but they go so quickly - you just end up wanting more. The day after I brought this album, I woke up suffering from withdrawal symptoms. I was addicted to the sound. The first thing I did was put the CD on...and now I go to sleep with the tracks playing on my iPod.

It is a must have for everyone, because this is a new genre. For never before have I heard the East meet the West in such perfect synergy. This is what world music should be.

Will anyone of Middle-Eastern or of Western descent have ever imagined that the musical instrument oud could fit perfectly with urban beats as it does in his opening track - "Just Like That"? You wonder why no one had thought of it before...but you can imagine that most black artists in the USA will be searching collections of oriental and Turkish musical instruments to start using in THEIR tracks. And rightly so if music sounds like this. This is the fresh injection that RnB and hiphop needs in America right now.

His fourth track "Mine" melds the darbuka with a catchy pop beat that is amazing - WHAT A SONG FOR BELLYDANCERS - and his voice raw and passionate just eats away at your hearing. You won't even realise it IS a darbuka pounding away - it has found a home so well in the arrangements of Ozan ?olakoglu - the much sought after musician that orchestrated Sertab Erener's 2003 hit win "Everyway That I Can" for the Eurovision song contest.

But most importantly, the finale track just raises you to the highest high, soft and slow, and the ending with the dreamy violins and Tarkan singing, "love is the sweetest pain inside/the answer to it all is right there in your eyes", makes you feel the loss of an album coming to an end as his sad soulful voice dies away - and you just can't wait to begin the whole journey again from track 1.

Tarkan in his 5th track 'Over' sings, "If you're heart's not open/you can't see what you've got'. I ask you to open your heart and give this album a chance. You'll be blown away.

This is the first English album of Turkish super popstar Tarkan who has already made so many fans all over the world with his Turkish albums.

Yes,this is an album made for presenting Tarkan to a wider audience in America, aiming especially American market but there is nothing wrong with that.In fact, weren't all his fans complaining about this issue, that he must be known and appreciated by more people in the USA?

This is an excellent dance album. If you like to dance, i can't think of a better album these days. You can do classical disco dance, rap, hiphop, belly dance at the same time. Eastern flavor is very well infused into the western style pop songs using Turkish instruments like oud, saz etc. Each song is penetrating in your blood and you can't stop dancing !

It's an album much much better than many America Top 10 Pop albums which are full of cliches, which are repeating themselves all the time. You easily feel that this album is different, has an identity, offers something new and we have a potential superstar for American market.

So give this man a chance if you don't know him and most importantly WATCH THIS MAN LIVE IN CONCERT because it's his strongest side. If you are not so impressed with the album(which would be a pity)you will be hooked seeing his dancing and stage charisma and if you have already liked the album your positive impressions will triple.

I give Tarkan try at English language pop hip hop 5 stars, but most write about the music, I want to write about the lyrics.

I've always been a content over style man. I like meaning in my lyrics whether it is a love song or a socio-political song. This is because meaningful lyrics must communicate some of the human experience.

One problem with many hip hop urban songs is the lack of this meaning. It is true that often the songs that have less meaning that people like to attach their own meaning to, but when you think about it - what messages are those songs giving? There is too much emphasis on hook and melody and "let's make babies" lyrics.

With Tarkan, although he has covered himself in urban beats, he has not forgotten the power of lyrics and many of his songs retain lyrical power.

I'm a musical student and I am thinking of writing a paper on this CD.

It is true that sometimes you can't quite make out what he says in English - one word or two here and there - but the whole flows so well that you know what he is saying without having to look in the booklet.

He does clever things by giving clues of other songs in different songs by using "chain words", and by using repeating motifs in the language to make the concept feel strong all the way through. For example imagery of "no need for words" (don't speak), touching skin on skin, and fire motifs are very powerful in the whole of the songs and often repeated. And in the song "I'm Going To Make You Feel Good" he whisper "Come Closer" indicating that if we follow the message of his "Come Closer" song to unify we can have so much more fun!!!

Some of the songs namely the first three "Just Like That" "In your eyes" and "Why Don't we" conform to usual lyrics, and you think Track 4 "Mine" will be more of the same and then halfway he sings in a sexy pitch and you take notice:

"Don't want you to hate me

I just want you to love me

I don't need you to save me

Don't you wanna misbehave me"

It is after this that the lyrics become to come into their own. The highest praise that can be heaped on a lyric is to compare it to poetry. And beginning with Track 5 the slow "Over", Pete "Boxta" Martin and Tarkan's writing is like poetry, with such home truths as:

"When you know you're wrong

She's heard it all before

And with every word unspoken

Each moment comes undone"

We've all been there right? There is no pretentious school-book rhyming here - just emotional words.

Then in Track 9 to the metaphorical call for human unity in his "Come Closer" song penned by the famous producer David Werner:

"A wind is blowing and a fire's loose

I couldn't find the words to call a truce

And tore the temple down to let the spirit rise..."

You can feel how caged we are by prejudice and now's the time to break free of our fears and come together. A lyric that chimes with the listener can have a unique impact. It shapes how you see the world. This had that impact on me. I love this song.

Towards the end, the album becomes lyrically much stronger, with tracks 12 to 15 all hitting out emotional lyrics.

Track 12 and clever sexy lyrics of "I'm Gonna Make You feel Good" just makes you smile written by Tina Harris, Steve Lee and Pete ''Boxta'' Martin:

"I just wanna see

What you're writing with your sweat on my skin

Come on, bring your dirty mind upstairs

I'm gonna make you feel good

Spinning around inside your brain

Like a sexy kind of hurricane"

It's fun, free and sexy - the lyrics just jump out at you.

While the final track 15, "If Only You Knew" being the most sweetest love song I've heard in a long time, with Billy Mann lyrics helping Tarkan to claim:

"Love is the sweetest pain inside

The answer to it all is right there in your eyes

I think I could die tonight

And know that I don't have to live again

And make love for hours 'til our bodies join

And your skin is my skin

If I could take the sun and take the moon

And make tomorrow wait

If only I, if only I knew the way"

What more is there to say with a finale like that? Except listen to it all over again.

It looks like this will be one of my most favourie CDs for a long, long time.

After going to his website and listeing to parts of all the songs i cant wait to get it in, i am angry in somepart that everyone else is critizing his work by just haveing a sneak peak at all the tracks on his website thats more than enought to know that this mans efforts are to be shown in this lastest cd, I cant wait to listen to it till it's scratched, but pleasee you all know that everything that TARKAN makes is more than well done, there are no boundaries for him, love you TARKANN !!!! keep up the good work !!!!

sing to it, dance to it, do all it takes to fall in love with it who wouldent ???