Album Review: Amy Grant – In Motion: The Remixes
3 min read
Releasing a remix album is always a brave step, but our Amy is a spirited soul and one always up for a challenge. From her Christian music routes, she became a pioneer for the cause, breaking into the mainstream and selling over 30 million units worldwide in the process. She was one of the first to crossover from Christian music and has developed different styles throughout her career, showing she’s not just a one trick Pony. At 54 years young, Amy’s again decided on a change of sound and direction by bringing a dance record out with In Motion: The Remixes, but does she manage to create something new and interesting out of her many hits?
The first thing you notice about the album is the amount of mixers Amy has on hand to help her out. She hasn’t just relied on one or two, but a plethora of talent to try and breathe new life into her back catalogue. Chris Cox does just this on That’s What Love is For, managing to fit Grant’s low tone vocals over a very 90s feel of dance music perfectly tailored to the era of the song; it gives the listener a heavy nostalgia for a period when dance was huge and brings out another side to Amy’s voice.
Every Heartbeat, featuring the mixing talents of Moto Blanco is the most melodic on the record and keeps with the 90s vibe, whereas Find a Way with it’s slightly darker tone and strange key change gives the record something a little different. With the amount of drops and heavy beats throughout, this record is tailored for the nightclub and nothing else, standing proud and making no apologies for it.
For all its 90s dance loveliness, the album does have some problems. The decision to include so many mixers has left the album feeling a bit bland. Whether they all were told to have a certain sound, or all ended up doing similar things, it can feel a little too conserved, no track really standing above the rest on invention or originality, and mostly playing it safe with by the numbers dance. Baby Baby is the track that most people will recognise, but this is the problem – the remix just leaves you pining for the original song as no amount of cutting and pasting will ever be as good as the original. Also for some reason the record includes two remixes of Stay For A While, which just dilutes the track and makes it feel as though the album needed filler.
In Motion: The Remixes is an album of contrasts. On the one hand it’s full of nostalgia and beats that would be perfectly playable in any nightclub to get the revellers bouncing along till the early hours. On the other hand it relies too heavily on the 90s sound, and could have done with a few more ideas. As usual our Amy is gutsy and daring in releasing this record, but unfortunately its lack of exuberance stop it from being the remix album it could have been.
