Robi Draco Rosa – Mad Love

robi_draco_rosa.jpg So he sounds a little like Sting and he was in Menudo with Ricky Martin. Nobody’s perfect. Besides penning ‘La Vida Loca’ and the simply awful ‘She bangs’ Robi Draco Rosa can write perfect, sultry tragic and obsessive love songs. He proves it on his solo album Mad Love which, apart from U2’s latest, must be my most played album of 2004. Which for any singer sounding as much like Sting as he does is an amazing feat, let me tell you.

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Joseph O’Connor – Star of the Sea

Star of the Sea.jpg Star of the Sea tells the story of the passengers on a ship sailing from Ireland to New York in the winter of 1847. Among them refugees from the potato famine, an Anglo-irish Lord and his family, a budding novelist, a maharaja and a murderer.

Even before the ship sets sail, one or two unfortunate passengers die of hunger whilke others succumb to disease on board. It’s all carefully noted in the ship’s log by her captain.

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