CD Review: Carlos Bertonatti - Times Are Good

Carlos Bertonatti - Times Are Good
2008 Epic Records/Sony ATV Publishing

Carlos Bertonatti has the right idea. Listening to tracks from the Miami singer’s Times Are Good you can easily here the pop craft that lay behind them. With slight Latin and soul influences in the background, you can almost hear the synched drum beats and canned keyboards that many producers would have packaged these songs in. Somewhere along the line someone figured out just how good these songs sounded in their raw form and decided to let them stand on their own. Carlos Bertonatti's voice and delivery over sparse drumming and acoustic guitars (with the occasional repressed Stax horns) comprises what might be the best pop album of the year thus far.

Times Are Good opens with Its So Easy, a breezy love song that has the potential to make Bertonatti a gazillionaire. Perfect Picture is a gem, with a chorus you'll be singing throughout the summer. The Little Things will have you grooving in your seat while conveying a positive message. All of these great songs aside, I would direct your attention to A Million Miles, which may just be a masterpiece in song. I suspect that if Carlos Bertonatti is still performing thirty years from now that A Million Miles may still be his encore song. It's a song of love lost in a minor key with strings, gorgeous harmonies, and kind of a wall-of-sound motif. It just doesn't get much better than this.

Still, there are other high points here: So Many Ways is an upbeat acoustic rocker, and Story Of A Little Girl is a moderate ballad about a disaffected debutante with a chorus that is unforgettable. One Two Three is another song that some producer will probably take and turn into a dance mix mega hit (rightfully so). Luckily the album version sticks with the acoustic tapestry established throughout Times Are Good, and this is a definite hit-pick.

There isn't a weak song here. I honestly don't know if Carlos Bertonatti has a weak song in him. He displays an ability to not just write lyrics but tell stories in the form of deliciously pop oriented songs that eschew the usual tricks and enhancements that take pop music away from music and closer to programming. Times Are Good is a smashing debut that has the potential to take the pop charts by storm, and is definitely a Wildy's World Desert Island Disc. As this album has now been picked up by a major label, don't be surpised if it's a #1 CD that reigns in the top 10 through the summer and into the Holiday shopping season. That aside, it's an amazing debut. Carlos Bertonatti is a major talent. Book your thirtieth anniversary tour tickets now.

Rating: 5 Stars (Out of 5)

You can learn more about Carlos Bertonatti at www.myspace.com/carlosbertonatti or www.carlosbertonatti.com. Carlos signed a deal with Epic and Sony ATV in 2008 to release Times Are Good as a joint venture. As of the time of this writing an official release date had not been announced, but it is expected in 2008.