| Piece by Piece | ||||
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| Studio album by Katie Melua | ||||
| Released | 26 September 2005 (UK) 6 June 2006 (USA) |
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| Recorded | 2004-2005 | |||
| Genre | Jazz/Blues | |||
| Length | 44:32 | |||
| Label | Dramatico | |||
| Producer | Mike Batt | |||
| Katie Melua chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Piece by Piece | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | [1] |
| Rolling Stone | [2] |
Piece by Piece, released in 2005 by Dramatico Records, is the second album by Georgian jazz and blues singer Katie Melua.
Its first single, "Nine Million Bicycles", became Melua's first top five hit in the UK and caused controversy when science writer Simon Singh said the lyrics "demonstrates a deep ignorance of cosmology and no understanding of the scientific method".
The second single was a double A-side comprising "I Cried for You" and a cover of The Cure's "Just Like Heaven". The former song was written after Melua met the writer of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail and is about Jesus and Mary Magdalene, while the latter was recorded for the soundtrack to the film Just Like Heaven. The single peaked outside the UK top twenty, and the album's third single, "Spider's Web" (which Melua wrote when she was eighteen, during the Iraq war) did not reach the top forty.
Melua wrote the title song "Piece by Piece" after she broke up with her boyfriend Luke Pritchard, and "Half Way up the Hindu Kush" was written by Katie and Mike Batt as a joke playing on the innuendo implicit in the title phrase, which cropped up in a conversation about scarves on a train journey. Katie wrote the chorus and Mike the verses. Alongside covers of "Blues in the Night" and Canned Heat's "On the Road Again", the album includes "Thank You, Stars", which was previously released as a B-side on Melua's debut single "The Closest Thing to Crazy" in 2003.
The album was re-released in 2006, as Piece By Piece: Special Bonus Edition, with three additional tracks and a bonus DVD with concert Moment by Moment and promo videos.
Contents |
A special edition for Spanish department store El Corte Inglés had additional tracks - Spanish language versions of "Closest Thing to Crazy" ("Esa Clase de Locura") and "Faraway Voice" (aka "Otra vez tu").
The USA release had two extra tracks (but not the Special Bonus edition tracks), "Jack's Room" and "Market Day in Guernica".
| Preceded by Life in Slow Motion by David Gray |
UK number one album 1 October 2005 – 8 October 2005 |
Succeeded by You Could Have It So Much Better by Franz Ferdinand |
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