Hard to picture this willowy singer from the Boston area as the mistress of the mosh pit? Deal with it. She kicks off her third solo album with the punky, full-tilt rumble of "What a Life" and rarely slacks off thereafter.
This clamorous, amplified stance is a startling transformation for Hatfield—and, for the most part, an unbecoming one. While her guitar playing has plenty of bark, it lacks bite. Her stiff solos are amateurish, consisting of a few repetitive chords banged out at maximum distortion. (Crude technique is not in itself a liability among Hatfield's core campus-based audience, who prefer their rock without polish.)
The real stumbling block with Hatfield's going electric is her diffident voice. It lacks the vehemence and immediacy to keep pace with the roaring guitars. The album's first single, "Universal Heart-Beat," would make an ideal platform for a group like the Pretenders, but Hatfield's reticent, artless voice takes the lid off the pressure cooker. It is no accident that the track with the softest focus, "Live on Tomorrow," is by far the record's most penetrating and poignant offering.
One of the songs on Only Everything is titled "Simplicity Is Beautiful." If only Hatfield had carried that axiom into the studio with her. (Atlantic/ Mammoth)
Soul for Real
Soul for Real is something else. While hot singing groups such as Boyz II Men and All-4-One dwell on virtuoso vocal glissandos and stiff, air-brushed tunes, Soul for Real's four brothers, whose ages range from 14 to 21, revel in loose, jazzy R&B and offer more human-sounding performances. The current Top 5 hit "Candy Rain" kicks off their debut with a yummy downpour of insinuating funk and a delicious mid-tempo groove. (It's hard to imagine the more calculating Boyz II Men attempting such a spontaneously sexy move.)
And rather than turning on the dome-baby raunch of their rude-boy counterparts in Jodeci and Silk, Soul for Real talk sweet and mostly stick to their upper vocal range. During the slinky toe-tappers "If You Want It" and "I Wanna Be Your Friend" you might even swear you've stumbled across one of their harmonizing sister acts. (Uptown/MCA)
Michael Feinstein
Feinstein's knowledge of the American popular song is encyclopedic. The cabaret singer turned concert performer's devotion to the music (from classics to the obscure) of the '30s and '40s is touching. His sincerity is genuine. His desire to acquaint younger audiences with the songs is admirable. This, however, does not mean that he should be the fellow making the introductions.
To put it as nicely as possible, Feinstein has a very small voice, one that often seems filtered through his nasal passages—think of Al Jolson with a cold—and is very limited in its shadings. As a performer he is most persuasive playing the piano and singing songs of un-challenging musical and emotional range.
The lugubrious Such Sweet Sorrow is not a particularly felicitous match of material and talent. Songs like "Let's Face the Music and Dance," "Easy to Love" and "I See Your Face Before Me" have a pinched, forced quality. Feinstein is clearly straining to reach the high notes and to hold his own above the orchestra. And why such a sedate "Love Is Just Around the Corner" when Feinstein could do well with an up-tempo version and the album could do with a jolt of energy?
The oasis here is the plaintive little charmer "Wind in the Willow," which Feinstein sings and plays with effective simplicity. (Atlantic)
Radiohead
When scuba divers rise too quickly from deep water to the surface, they risk getting the bends, a painful and potentially fatal condition caused by pressure changes in the bloodstream. On their sophomore album, the guys in Radiohead sound like they've had their share of equally excruciating experiences.
Best known for "Creep," 1993's tender-then-tough hit single in which front man Thorn Yorke became a slacker soulmate by groaning, "I'm a creep/ I'm a weirdo," the English quintet continues to alternate between lulling and lashing out. "My Iron Lung" offers a pretty, gentle melody that suddenly bursts into a hailstorm of harsh guitar riffs, while "Planet Telex" and the title song toss and turn like the best of those big restless Pearl Jam and U2 arena-size anthems. On the flip side, "Bulletproof...I Wish I Was" is so delicate and weightless, it seems to be floating, and the stately, baroque "(Nice Dream)" sounds like one. True, Radio-head's wide-ranging tunes are rarely such a totally soothing stroke fest, but in the end that doesn't matter. These Bends won't hurt at all. (Capitol)
Radney Foster
A handsome, bookish-looking Texan, the son of a lawyer and a teacher, Foster released a fine solo debut, Del Rio, TX 1959, in late '92. Labor of Love, though cut from the same first-class cloth, doesn't hit quite as many highs. Foster, who writes or cowrites most of his material, could have used another six months to come up with a song or two as good as the album's disarming closer, "Making It Up As I Go Along." Foster's knack for simple, buoyant melodies, his clear (if unspectacular) tenor and his fondness for a good old shuffle beat, put one in mind of his fellow south Texas native Rodney Crowell. In fact, Foster is making a strong bid for a piece of Crowell's crown as Nashville's ranking purveyor of clear-eyed, tough-minded love songs. So watch out, Rodney; Radney's comin' on. (Arista)
Slash's Snakepit
One of the qualities that first distinguished Guns N' Roses from the ever-swelling pile of '80s metal bands were the lovely melodies it sometimes stitched into head-banging textures. The guitar solo in "Sweet Child o' Mine," from the band's blockbuster 1987 album, Appetite for Destruction, is as pretty as rock and roll gets. It's too bad Slash, the creator of that riff, has lost touch with his softer side. This album, recorded while Guns N' Roses is taking a hiatus, pounds the listener into submission with songs that pack plenty of fury but little else.
For his joyride, Slash has recruited former Jellyfish member Eric Dover as lead vocalist, ex-GN'R guitarist Gilby Clarke and current bandmate Matt Sorum on drums, among others. Together, they produce 14 songs dripping with testosterone, including some speedy solos and some very loud singing (at times Dover sounds remarkably-like top Gunner Axl Rose, who doesn't make an appearance on this record).
But where's the soul? And what happened to the acoustic numbers, for that matter? Metaphorically speaking, it just might be a good idea for Slash to invoke less guns and more roses in his next musical endeavor. (Geffen)
- Contributors:
- David Hiltbrand,
- Jeremy Helligar,
- Joanne Kaufman,
- Tony Scherman,
- Peter Castro.
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!
