From sample-heavy hip-hop ("Bounce to the Beat") and funkified R&B ("Takin' Over") to Latino salsa ("Robi-Rob's Boriqua Anthem") and even rhythm-rocking reggae ("Gonna Love U"), this follow-up to C&C's smash debut, Gonna Make You Sweat, has something for just about every dance-music fan's taste. But because it's all over the dance floor, many of these clever tracks will work better as singles than they do within the context of the whole. While it remains to be seen whether this album results in jingle-ready catchphrases like "Things That Make You Go Hmmm..." and "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)," cuts like "Do You Wanna Get Funky" and "All Damn Night" have potential to become as insidious as their predecessors. If nothing else, you have to give David Cole and Robert Clivilles, the brainy writer-producer plant managers behind C&C Music Factory, plenty of credit for creating an album that more than lives up to its caution-to-the-wind title. (Columbia)
Various Artists
Arthur Lee was the guiding light of Love, the Los Angeles rock band whose 1968 album, Forever Changes, is often hailed as one of the psychedelic era's most enduring works of art. On this excellent tribute CD, 21 artists, ranging from the nouveau hip (Urge Overkill, Teenage Fanclub) to the hopelessly obscure (Eggs, Trycycle), interpret some of Love's best songs. Although Urge Overkill turns in a letter-perfect Xerox of "Robert Montgomery," other contributors aren't so reverent: The Deer Team gallops through "Signed D.C.," a farewell from a dying junkie that Love recorded as a forlorn ballad, and Gobblehoof recasts the ethereal "Alone Again Or" as a dirge. Nonetheless, Lee's surreal sensibility remains indelibly stamped on every song here, and that's the ultimate tribute to his loopy genius. (Alias)
Pulp
On first listen, Pulp seems to be another of those foppy British pop bands Americans love to jeer at. But their Stateside debut album—they've been around for ages in England—is more than just rehashed Depeche Mode. Although front man Jarvis Cocker looks like a classic, frail Britwit, his voice conveys surprising feeling. Candida Doyle's keyboards add an elegant depth to Pulp's sound. Cocker's favorite subject—young lovers galvanized by lust—wears thin over the course of an entire album, but strong melodies save the day: "Babies" is such a giddy marvel that you won't even mind the corn-ball lyrics ("Oh, I want to take you home/I want to give you children"). Lush and lively, His 'N' Hers is just the thing for closet romantics with a fondness for catchy, sexy pop songs. (Island)
Edie Brickell
Sometimes not-so-good things come from those who wait. Four years—a pop-music eternity—have passed since Ghost of a Dog, Edie Brickell & New Bohemians' unsuccessful follow-up to their 1988 platinum debut, Shooting Rubberbands at the Stars. On both, Brickell was a barefoot Daisy Age throwback, offering zingers like "I'm not aware of too many things/ I know what I know if you know what I mean" (from the 1988 hit "What I Am") over lazy acoustic shuffles. But she's doffed all those hippie pretensions on her solo debut (coproduced by husband Paul Simon) for an easy-listening sound that, while undeniably pretty, is often just plain monotonous.
In the early days, Brickell's songs worked well because, despite her slight vocals and facile lyrics, the simple tunes had energy and bite. But much of the new record lacks that vitality. Except for a few reminders of brighter days (the title song, "Hard Times," and Barry White's scene-stealing basso profundo on "Good Times," the first single), this Picture Perfect Morning is mostly cloudy. (Geffen)
Shawn Colvin
Shawn Colvin is an archetypal folkie, an appellation that not long ago was synonymous with quaintness and obsolescence. But in today's pop world, populated by cartoonish rappers, grunge-rock poseurs and annoying techno-dweebs, a lone woman with an acoustic guitar can sound downright innovative.
Cover Girl, Colvin's third album, consists entirely of her own interpretations of other people's songs. She tries successfully to put her own spin on hits like Bob Dylan's "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go" and the Police's "Every Little Thing (He) Does is Magic" and to resurrect worthy obscurities from songwriters Judee Sill and Willis Alan Ramsey. When Colvin performs without a band, as she does on half the tracks here, the pristine quality of her voice and guitar seem positively rarefied. For a buzz you can't catch from Pearl Jam or Snoop Doggy Dogg, forget your fear of folk and cock an ear to this collection of charming covers. (Columbia)
Joe Diffie
No sooner had Joe Diffie made the leap from working as a foundry machinist to C&W in 1990 with his debut, A Thousand Winding Roads, than he immediately became a balladeer to reckon with. Even now, on his fourth album, his soaring range on the slow ones is still his strength. By contrast, good-time romps like "I'm in Love with a Capital 'U' " and "Pickup Man" sound obligatory. Too bad. Hearing gems like the ballads "Wild Blue Yonder" and the achingly affecting "That Road Not Taken" ("Yesterday I missed my exit/ On my way to Sears/ A song was on the radio/ I hadn't heard in years"), it's hard not to get annoyed with the forced conviviality and proudly know-nothing lyrics of the party anthems surrounding them. (Epic)"
Chet Atkins
Nashville's nimblest guitarist owes a big-time thank you to such guest stars as George Benson and Mark Knopfler, who help save him from churning out what might have been an entirely slick, mediocre production. On "Around the Bend," Knopfler and another guitarist, the talented Pat Bergeson, come to the rescue and form a smooth, finger-pickin' summit with Atkins. Benson reaches back to his early days as a pure jazz guitarist and floats delicious, hollow-bodied fills during a duet with Atkins on Johnny Mercer's "Dream." By the time Atkins wraps things up on his own with a warm instrumental version of Don McLean's "Vincent," the hits, thankfully, outnumber the misses. (Columbia)
- Contributors:
- Billy Altman,
- Tom Sinclair,
- Jeremy Helligar,
- Mark Lasswell,
- Andrew Abrahams.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
