The Daou - Head Music (1992)

Vanessa Daou is one of my favourite artists of all time. Her music is sexy, trippy and cool, as is her voice and image. She entered the art world as a dancer, earning a scholarship at Columbia University, and also delved into poetry. She emerged as a music artist in the late 1980s after hooking up with future husband Peter Daou, a producer and musician. Together they recorded demos that caught the attention of small New York label Nugroove. They recorded primarily deep house tracks under several monikers including Vandal, DTR, Critical Rhythm and Club Z. These tracks made Columbia Records notice and sign them. They released this album as The Daou to much critical praise, but little sales. However, the only single from the album, "Surrender Yourself", was remixed by Danny Tenaglia and hit #1 on the Billboard dance chart. Creative differences made them part ways with the label and they released a couple more tracks independently as The Daou, both of which were huge dance chart successes. In 1994 Vanessa signed with MCA records as a solo artist and released two albums on the label, and had remixes of two songs hit #1 on the Billboard dance chart, "Sunday Afternoons" and "Two To Tango". In 1997 she left the label and released three more albums independently, the last in 2000. Thankfully she finally re-emerged last year with a new album. Her music is jazzy, soulful, often very danceable and has many electronic flourishes, including deep bass, house, drum 'n bass and trip hop elements. It is absolutely gorgeous music, with Vanessa's husky whisper of a voice singing and speaking directly to you. The Daou album, however, is not one of my faves. I actually had to buy it twice, as I had bought it around when it was released and didn't like it one bit, so I sold it. Then when I discovered and fell in love with Vanessa as a solo artist, I had to hunt it down again, thinking I missed something. But while I like it a lot more now than I did then, it is still not as good as her solo stuff IMO (most of which Peter also produced). It is a bit less rich and electronic as her solo stuff, more rock-based, but it still has the jazz and soul elements, and if you like it, then you'll ADORE her solo work.

Video for Surrender Yourself

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1		Surrender Yourself
2		Skin Deep
3		Sympathy Bouquet
4		Solitaire
5		Never Ending Winter
6		Figure In The Sand
7		Her Universe
8		What Are You Guilty Of?
9		The Way