RyanDan

by Sharon Mawer Universal Music is one of the leaders in the field of classical crossover music, and when the label was looking for something slightly different to release, an obvious choice was RyanDan, an album by the Kowarsky brothers, Canadian identical twins named after their first names, Ryan and Dan. After all, being twins, there would obviously be no problem with the blending of voices and harmony, and on their debut album, there certainly wasn't. But the album RyanDan wasn't just about the vocals -- after all, with a plethora of artists in this genre, there had to be something different. In fact, it was hardly a classical crossover album at all, but rather an album of 12 well-sung songs, with importance given to the backing as well as the choice of repertoire. The first half of the album was filled with original songs, including the beautiful Judie Tzuke-written ballad "High," the almost religious "The Prayer," and "In Us I Believe," but the second half included more cover versions of the type that have appeared on many an album: "Wind Beneath My Wings," "I'll Be There," and "Bring Him Home" from Les Miserables (which was most definitely a solo song rather than a duet). Rather strangely, the album started off well, looking good as it hit number seven on its first week on the charts, but it very quickly nosedived and disappeared totally just two weeks later, despite getting near to the Christmas season when this type of pleasant easy listening tended to sell better than at other times of the year. Possibly it was simply because RyanDan suddenly found themselves competing with their own label's marketing of even newer releases, also aimed squarely at the once-per-year purchase. Since many of the competing releases were considerably inferior to this album, how fickle can the music business be? One thing's for sure, this genre of music never has been and still didn't sell in the singles market; the leadoff track, "Like the Sun," only reached number 69.