Music: Wonder by Lisa Mitchell

A massively underrated album by a massively underrated artist.

It’s not very often that I like an artist on first listen but when I first saw Lisa Mitchell supporting Newton Faulkner on his Rebuilt By Humans tour it was one of those rare occasions where I was instantly hooked.  From the moment she opened with Neapolitan Dreams I was literally filled with excitement and I knew straight away that I had to get her album.

The rest of her show that night was equally brilliant so not surprisingly I was just as impressed by her album Wonder.  This was one of those albums which I originally listened to over and over.

The stand out track would have to be ‘Oh Hark’ which incidentally is probably the most played track on my iPod out of a playlist of thousands of songs.  It has a brilliantly infectious happy summer feel to it and if there was any justice in the musical world it would have been a massive worldwide hit.  The fact that it wasn’t means that every radio playlister who overlooked this piece of musical genius should hang their heads in shame.

But this is by no means a one track album.  There isn’t a single weak track to be found on Wonder.  The level of musical excellence remains consistent throughout.

I read once an article which argued that the most important factor by far in the commercial success of any product was not the actual quality of the product, but the marketing.  If ever there was an album which underlined the reverse of this argument, then it is Lisa Mitchell’s Wonder.  Although it reached number six in the Australian charts, it went relatively unnoticed in the rest of the world and didn't even register in the UK and US charts.  That just underlines how an album will struggle nowadays to achieve success by musical excellence alone, because if the commercial success of this album had been determined solely by the quality of the music then it would have been camped out in the top ten album charts for several months. 

I wouldn’t even say this album’s appeal would be limited to fans of a particular genre of music.  I can imagine it having a broad cross spectrum attraction which would appeal to fans of music across the board.

In summary, this is a massively underrated album by a massively underrated musician.  Have a listen to Oh Hark if you want to discover just exactly why I love this album so much and within a few listens there’s a very good chance that you’ll find yourself listening to it over and over on repeat and just as hooked as myself and I’m sure many others were on first discovering Lisa Mitchell’s excellent music.

Download Wonder by Lisa Mitchell on iTunes:

For more on Lisa Mitchell check out her official website:
Lisa Mitchell's Official Website

Follow Lisa Mitchell on twitter:
@lisahmitchell

Worthy Of A Bigger Audience is also on twitter:
@WoabaBlog

Find more music recommendations at the following link:
Music on 'Worthy Of A Bigger Audience'


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