She unwittingly liberates art forms of their depth and soul, while softening the edges to fit her brand.
Not everyone has warmed to Elizabeth Henstridge's head-girl-and-hockey-sticks performance as Simmons, but even hard-hearted souls may have softened after seeing her try to hold it together while asking Coulson to break the news of her death to her dad first: "I just think my mum would take it better coming from him".
It's also softened by mythology: the soul's cosmic transition is aided by the vulture's mystic eye, and the feeding of one's dead body to the birds is considered the devout Zoroastrian's final act of charity.
(Mercifully, Fleming eventually exhibited the glimmerings of a soul, or, at least, his greed softened his isolationism. Later in the books, in tribute to Mr. Connery's contribution to the Bond franchise, the author gave Bond a Scottish pedigree).
And she softened for a delicate folk-soul take on "Evergreen" featuring the R&B star Babyface, who remade the mid-'70s hit with Streisand on her 2014 album, "Partners".
Throughout the album, it is Sampha's contributions that seem to most fully realize Russell's sonic goals, a minimalist skeleton of rave drums, softened by the harmonies and textures of blues and soul.
A quiet corner to discover, to soften the soul.
That said, the songs from "Fiddler on the Roof," heard outside a theatrical context and softened for cabaret, retained enough primal Eastern European pulse to stir the soul.
"Not a memory, softened and romanticized by time, of his youth, but Tennessee trying to describe his state of soul and state of being today and now.
But it's a sign of the times that the authors have softened Barrie's rapscallion and turned the mythic Peter into a sweet, thoughtful boy with a fundamentally different soul.
