Simha
Classical, 2013
Before Katy Perry booked herself a glorified zero-gravity TikTok session aboard Jeff Bezos’s space dildo and acted like she’d survived Apollo 13, there is Sarah Brightman, our original cosmic songbird and living embodiment of Diva Plavalaguna from The Fifth Element. Dab the woman in blue paint, scatter some glitter in her hair, and she’d look more at home floating in orbit than half the satellites up there.
Back in the early 2010s, Sarah wasn’t just dreaming of the stars. She was literally training to go to space. Dreamchaser was conceived as the soundtrack to that odyssey. Sadly, the trip was eventually grounded due to “personal reasons,” which we all know is PR code for “the cheque didn’t clear” or “I had a better offer to haunt the Royal Albert Hall again”. So, all we’re left of her spacefaring dreams with is this shimmering, gravity-defying fever dream of an album.
Now, here’s where things get weird: Dreamchaser is supposed to be a deeply personal concept album about space… made up almost entirely of cover songs. Yes, other people’s songs. It’s the musical equivalent of calling American Idol a deeply personal autobiographical docuseries.
The sole original track, B 612, is named after the asteroid in The Little Prince, because of course it is. What does this cosmic opus sound like? Ms Brightman warbling “da da da, la la la” over an orchestral track that sounds like it belongs in a cutscene from Mass Effect 2.
By now, long-time Sarah Brightman stans know the drill. Since her Dive days, she’s been covering songs, tweaking lyrics to suit whatever moonchild aesthetic she’s channeling that year and layering them over symphonic pop and spacey sound effects like the classy, ethereal, slightly unhinged diva she is. Dreamchaser isn’t as acid-laced as Fly (her best album, fight me), but instead it leans hard into lush, melodic, pop-classical comfort food.
Does it break new ground? Nope. Not even a little. Dreamchaser is another pleasant, misty-eyed stroll down Brightman Boulevard. Even her umpteenth rendition of Ave Maria — which, let’s face it, she could probably sing in her sleep at this point — manages to feel like the climactic soundtrack of a galaxy-spanning opera no one asked for, but we’re all a little better for having heard.
And yet… the formula works. The tracks blur together into one long, otherworldly lullaby that makes you feel like you’ve gone on a fantastical cosmic adventure without needing to ingest any questionable pharmaceuticals. Glósóli is pure, glimmering transcendence, and Venus and Mars sounds like what David Bowie might have put together if someone handed him a harp and an angelic choir after three glasses of rosé.
In short, while Dreamchaser doesn’t explore new worlds, it still manages to take you there — floating, swaying, lost in stardust, wondering why more popera divas don’t record concept albums about going to space. It’s a beautiful, slightly bonkers trip, and frankly, the universe is poorer for never having gotten Sarah Brightman in a space suit.