Review: Miguel – Kaleidoscope Dream

BY DANIELLA ASPURU

R&B singer Miguel recently released his 2nd album Kaleidoscope Dream on October 2nd.  Being raised in California to a Latino father and African American mother, they gave him the passion for music, while Michael Jackson’s career and dancing techniques made him want to further his career.  By the age of 17 Miguel was signed to Black Ice and ready to record. Once his first album All I Want Is You was released in 2010 Miguel found his passion.

On Kaleidoscope Dream, Miguel incorporates dance music, which is widely popular now, to make the beat of his songs smooth but edgy. Even though a lot of artists are using techno beats Miguel doesn’t pull it off. On every track he continues to use the same dance style rhythm and lyrics on love, which makes the songs repetitious and confusing. Using the same style of music over and over just doesn’t work out for Miguel and makes for boring listening.

The theme for Kaleidoscope Dream is love since a good majority of the songs touch this subject and after a while all the songs seem the same. As I listened to the album I could hardly tell if the song was the same one or if it switched to a new one.   A couple of love songs are great but you can’t have your audience confused with what they’re listening too. The audience needs to understand and feel it, connect with what the artist is saying.  If your music is mundane and repetitive, there won’t be anything but disconnect from the audience. It seems that all Miguel accomplished was to put people to sleep with this album.

I respect Miguel as a musician and am a fan of his music but this album wasn’t what I was expecting. After 45 minutes of continuous listening I was done with this album because a majority of the songs sounded the same and they left me wondering what I was listening to. I think if Miguel changed the beat in his songs, picked up the tempo or even slowed it down, I would have a way better opinion on this album.