Phawker (Free subscription) | 18/11/2008
... eschew electro-beats. Their touchy-feely lyrics are cowritten by hired hands such as songwriter Amanda Ghost, who also co-wrote James Blunt’s “You’re Beautiful.” To Beyoncé’s credit, the songs are uniformly well sung. At 27, the newly married megastar wife of rapper-mogul Jay-Z seems to have outgrown the need for excessively showy vocalizing, and she almost invariably avoids the rococo...
Philadelphia Inquirer (Free subscription) | 18/11/2008
It also, conveniently, allows her to work two sides of the commercial fence. I Am songs like "Disappear" and "Ave Maria" (a rewrite of the aria) are her chance to go for a Streisand- and Celine Dion-size middle-of-the-road audience. The soaring romances and weepers decorated with piano and strings eschew electro-beats. Their touchy-feely lyrics are cowritten by hired hands such as songwriter Amanda...
Radio Dupree (Free subscription) | 15/11/2008
Come in from the cold is a two part interview where Amanda Ghost talks to Joni Mitchell . It was done before the release of her album Shine (2007). You can catch it online. Here are the local times for the two shows if you'd like to listen "live": Saturday 15 November: 19.00 (2 pm ET, 20.00 CET) Tuesday 18 November: 22.30 (17.30 ET, 23.30 CET) http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/documentaries/jonimitchell.shtml...
San Fransisco Chronicle (Free subscription) | 16/11/2008
... a double album with two distinct sides. The first half is made up of midtempo pop tunes written by Amanda Ghost, one of the collaborators behind James Blunt's "You're Beautiful." These are supposed to represent the real Beyoncé and are, therefore, quite dull. Well, aside from the single "If I Were a Boy" and the reasonably genius "Halo." The second half, meanwhile, is made up of futuristic...
The Independent (Free subscription) | 16/11/2008
She gets prime songwriting credit on every song, but she's backed up by heavyweights such as Ryan Tedder (Leona Lewis's "Bleeding Love") and Amanda Ghost (James Blunt's "You're Beautiful"). The team of producers, too, is big enough to crew a nuclear sub. It therefore ends up like every other megastar album nowadays, packed with depressingly lucrative balladry such as "If I Was A Boy"....
Billboard (Free subscription) | 16/11/2008
... that."The first CD, "I Am..." is filled with mainstream-aimed tracks from pop songwriters like Amanda Ghost (James Blunt's "You're Beautiful") and E. Kidd Bogart (Rihanna's "S.O.S."). The second offers Beyonce's tried-and-true R&B with a fresh electronic tinge, crafted by producers like Bangladesh (Lil' Wayne's "A Milli"), Jim Jonsin (T.I.'s "Whatever You Like") and Tricky Stewart...
