Wonder's gift for transcendent melody takes an ill-timed leave of absence on this studio album, his first since the vibrant 1991 soundtrack to Jungle Fever. Trying to sound au courant, he sets his oft-employed message of love and harmony to tough hip-hop beats—and too often winds up slamming out pedestrian songs lacking his usual celebratory bounce.
Wonder is at the controls, playing most instruments himself. On a few cuts, however, the Master Blaster enlists guest stars who help make those songs distinctive and fresh. Vocalist Anita Baker and trumpeter Terence Blanchard add to the cool, creeping, jazz feel of "Sensuous Whisper." The entwining harmonies of the a cappella group Take 6 and singer Deniece Williams practically levitate the lovely "I'm New" right out of the CD player.
Yet most of the album consists of roughly 6-minute songs that rely on state-of-the-art drum programming for visceral impact and aren't imaginative enough to overcome repetitive arrangements. Are Wonder's best days behind him? Perish the thought. Maybe it's just a 44-year-old superstar's song-writing slump. Keep swinging, Stevie, you've got more home runs in you yet. (Motown)
Skid Row
Duck for cover, kids. Something strident this way comes. Skid Row is back with their first album in four years—their most raucous, intense and impressive effort yet. From the raging opener, "My Enemy," a slab of hard rock striated with punk, to the wild abandon of "Remains to Be Seen," this is a sonic juggernaut, driven by guitar hellions Scotti Hill and Dave "Snake" Sabo and by singer Sebastian Bach and his venomous attitude.
Credit for making Subhuman the tightest and cleanest sounding of the band's four releases goes to producer Bob Rock, known for his work with Metallica and the Cult. That it's better played and better written? Well, Skid Row can take all the credit for that. (Sabo's "Breakin' Down," with its yearning tone, is easily the most evocative song the group has ever recorded.) Subhuman sure ain't pretty, but then, assault and battery never is. (Atlantic)
Guy Clark
This is a fine and sturdy album from a fabled songwriter. None of Clark's seven records have been big sellers, but they're always welcomed by country-music cognoscenti. Sung in his whiskeyed, weathered voice, Clark's songs don't make the startling leaps or have the rich verbal play of the tunes of his friend and fellow Texan Townes Van Zandt; if Van Zandt is country folk's Picasso, Clark is its Winslow Homer, a hardworking craftsman whose insights are sturdy, not startling. A Guy Clark song is built to last (he gave Ricky Skaggs "Heartbroke" and cowrote, with Rodney Crowell, "She's Crazy for Leavin' "), and Dublin Blues adds a few to his canon: "Black Diamond Strings," "The Cape" and the title song. Clark can stray into cliché, but more often than not, he rescues himself. "The Randall Knife," an epitaph for his father, may flirt with mawkishness, but it winds up giving you goosebumps. (Asylum)
Duran Duran
While a number of popular singers—Luther Vandross, Gloria Estefan and Annie Lennox among them—have been cooking up carefully focused cover albums of late, Duran Duran takes the potluck approach. A more gaudy and haphazard collection of borrowed songs would be hard to imagine.
A few of the selections are suited to the group's refined, almost effete British pop style. For instance, vocalists Simon LeBon & Co. offer up an intoxicated version of the Doors' "Crystal Ship" and a cheeky strut through Iggy Pop's "Success." And on the title track, they manage to recapture the kiss-the-sky psychedelia of that Led Zeppelin oddity.
The rest of the album lies beyond the bounds of plausibility. Let's face it: There are few groups that scream "white boys" as loudly as Duran Duran. If their sound was any paler, it would be albino. A powerful soul song like Sly & the Family Stone's "I Wanna Take You Higher" emerges as a flippant, hollow anthem in Duran Duran's hands, and their plastic version of a vehement rap number such as Public Enemy's "911 Is a Joke" sounds so inauthentic that it could pass for a parody. For sheer strangeness, nothing can match their chaotic shredding of the Temptations' "Ball of Confusion." (Even the chorus of nuns in Sister Act 2 brought more street credibility to that song.)
Say this, however: The band attacks all the material with its usual blithe enthusiasm. It makes for interesting listening, even when the results are ludicrous. If this album does well, brace yourself for a flood of incongruous copycats. Is the world ready for Neil Diamond Interprets the Music of Snoop Doggy Dogg? (Capitol)
Sheena Easton
Sheena Easton once planned to call this album Straight Ahead Pop, a useful clue for consumers wondering what to expect next from the changeable Scottish-born singer who lives in L.A. Easton was packaged in the early '80s as a bland songbird who admittedly made the most of that hit-waiting-to-happen "Morning Train (Nine to Five)." She reemerged a few years later as a vampish Prince courtier ("Sugar Walls"). More recently, Easton recorded an album in Spanish and a collection of jazz standards.
Throughout her serpentine career, Easton has shown plenty of technical ability, and it remains generously in evidence on My Cherie. Silky and tender on "All I Ask of You," proudly combative on " 'Til Death Do Us Part," she's at ease with pop formulas. But she has never seemed entirely comfortable with pop emotions. Her chilliness seeps into otherwise nicely crafted ballads: "Crazy Love" and "Please Don't Be Scared" both sound like they need a sweater. Sometimes the shortest route to warm romance isn't straight ahead. (MCA)
- Contributors:
- Andrew Abrahams,
- David Hiltbrand,
- Tony Scherman,
- Mark Lasswell.
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!
