Track Listing

1. Sitting Down Here
2. Playing My Game
3. Unforgivable Sinner
4. Flown Away
5. Way We Are
6. So I See
7. Maybe I'll Go
8. Where I'm Headed
9. One Year Ago
10. Place Nearby

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12738 in Music
• Released on: 2000-03-13
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

Amazon.co.uk Review
When Lene Marlin stepped up onto the podium at the 1999 MTV European Music Awards to collect the award for best Scandinavian artist, anyone outside of the icy hinterlands could have been forgiven for thinking, "But that's not the woman out of the Cardigans..." Five months later and Lene Marlin's single "Sitting Down Here" was a big hit throughout Europe and now everyone knows her name, even if they can't pronounce it (it's "Le-nay", by the way). Her debut album Playing My Game fittingly opens with the hit single, which sets the tone for the rest of the album--deceptively sweet melodies topped with bittersweet lyrics of lost loves and youthful alienation. Musically it is hardly challenging, combining the angst of the likes of Fiona Apple with the gentle harmonious vocals of the Corrs. It does beg the question what young, successful, attractive women like Lene and Fiona have to complain about, but if it leads to pretty, folk-tinged pop like this, who's complaining? --Helen Marquis

From the Artist
HELLO EVERYONE!
Hello, thanks for everyone for buying my album! I have just been in London and am very tired, but I`ll try to write a comment for you anyway:

I started working on this album last year, and it was released in my native Norway this spring. The major Norwegian newspapers gave it very good reviews (it`s true). It was then it all began: My life changed and I was no longer the shy schoolgirl from Tromsoe (sorry, English keyboard), but Lene Marlin - the star, the new big artist from Norway. Hope`ll like my album, I spent quite a time with making it. Love Lene

Customer Reviews

The most wonderful album...
I love this album, it is the one I would take to a desert island if I only were allowed one CD. I orginally bought it on the back of the poppy opening singles, and the minor hype which surrounded Lene here in the Nordic countries (culminating in her winning the MTV award for best Nordic artist). The most part of the album is different from the singles however, great somgwriting, depth, emotion and a voice which is at once fragile and powerful. It still seems to get better with every listen, and probably deserves six stars...

The power of loss and loneliness
This album is probably best to listen to alone, so no one sees the tears.

There isn't much to say beyond what's already been said. Yes, Lene Marlin has a rare, beautiful voice. Yes, she is gorgeous (see the cover pictures). And she wrote every song on this album herself. So they come from the heart, which comes across as a truly broken one.

The sadness in the songs - which reminds me so much of the sadness in the poems of A. E. Housman - is there from the beginning, in the catchy 'Sitting Down Here'. But if you're hoping for a few rays of sunshine to brighten the gloom, do not buy this album. For Marlin has written what few others would dare to write: an album whose theme of profound unhappiness - the pain of loss, the lack of success in the love stakes - has not been made lighter and less sincere by the addition of falsely upbeat songs. Don't get me wrong, you won't feel like slitting your wrists after listening to this album - I only bought it this afternoon and listened to it from start to finish - but you will need to cure yourself of a pain in the stomach - brought on by the sheer power of the songs.

Most people know the singles 'Sitting Down Here' and 'Unforgivable Sinner' (although the latter was sorely underrated in the UK), but few will be familiar with the beauty of 'Flown Away' or 'Maybe I'll Go'.

If Lene Marlin never writes another word, another bar of music, we shall always have this. And it should always be there.

Truly amazing....not what you'd expect
When I first heard Lene Marlins "Sitting Down Here" I thought - not bad - upbeat lively Britney Spears type singer. When I saw the reviews on Amazon, I thought, Hmmm, maybe there's more to this singer than I first thought. So I bought the album and I was gobsmacked. She has got a incredible voice - amazing range and emotion. This is not a Britney Spears type pop album at all. My favourite track is "Maybe I'll Go" which shows the range in Lene's voice. I just love that song. The other true masterpiece is "A place nearby" which is the most touching song I have heard for a very very long time. It just brought me to tears and I say this having also bought Eminem's new album! "A place nearby" is about death and dying but it also inspire incredible hope and it is not a depressing song. Lene's lyrics show a incredible insight into life, love and everything else that makes us human. The lyrics are truly surprisingly for someone so young - she writes about subjects which other singers her age could only dream about. I can't wait for her next album because I've been truly converted. Amazing.