Natalie Cole Unforgettable...With Love (30th Anniversary Edition) 180g 2LP

Unforgettable... With Love is legendary singer and songwriter Natalie Cole's biggest album to date. Since its initial release in 1991, it has sold over seven million copies and also won Cole six GRAMMY Awards. The album's title track, an interactive duet with her father, would go on to be one of her most memorable recordings.

This 30th Anniversary edition of the album features newly remastered audio.

A major change of direction for Natalie Cole, Unforgettable found the singer abandoning the type of R&B/pop she'd been recording since 1975 in favor of jazz-influenced pre-rock pop along the lines of Nat King Cole's music. It was a surprising risk that paid off handsomely - both commercially and artistically. Naysayers who thought that so radical a change would be commercial suicide were proven wrong when the outstanding Unforgettable sold a shocking five million units. Quite clearly, this was an album Cole was dying to make. Paying tribute to her late father on 'Mona Lisa,' 'Nature Boy,' 'Route 66,' and other gems that had been major hits for him in the 1940s and early '50s, the 41-year-old Cole sounds more inspired than she had in well over a decade. On the title song, overdubbing was used to make it sound as though she were singing a duet with her father - dishonest perhaps, but certainly enjoyable. Thankfully, standards and pre-rock pop turned out to be a primary direction for Cole, who was a baby when the title song became a hit for her father in 1951.

Natalie sounds loose and joyous on snappy tunes like 'Route 66' and 'Straighten Up and Fly Right,' and properly subdued on the record's many ballads. And, naturally, you can hear the care she took when approaching the studio-constructed 'duet' with her dad on the title track. The success of this album (7x platinum, and six Grammy awards) allowed her to easily switch lanes and spend much of the rest of her career as a jazz vocalist. This vinyl reissue is a nice reminder of how comfortable and delightful that transition was.