During the '70s, age of mood rings and leisure suits, disco became a middle-class anesthetic. Nowadays disco is back under the rubric "house music," with more ambitious lyrics. Three years ago Janet Jackson urged us to expand our minds while wiggling our hips to Rhythm Nation 1814, and on last summer's dance anthem "Gypsy Woman," Crystal Waters bemoaned homelessness. Now Deee-Lite, those neo-disco darlings, have succumbed to the fashion for politically correct dance music.
In the band's nifty 1990 debut album, World Clique, and its irresistible Top 5 single, "Groove Is in the Heart," the soft message of interracial harmony was cloaked by the frivolous babble and the retro chic of psychedelic visuals and thrift-shop fashion. But on Infinity Within, the threesome trade their platform shoes and hippy-dippy duds for turtlenecks and much basic black. Deee-Lite now favors the throbbing beat of "deep house," a bass-heavy form of neo-disco, throwing in an occasional twist: rhythms mimicking a human heartbeat, reggae-rap, horns, a flute solo and an African chant.
Meanwhile, vocalist Lady Kier (formerly Lady Miss Kier, but perhaps the Miss was deemed un-PC) seductively insists that we beware global warming, wear condoms and register to vote. (The liner notes thank Anita Hill, Jimmy Carter and the militant gay group ACT UP, among many others.) The irony is that this bandwagon-esque approach provides some of the album's best musical moments. The giddy "Rubber Lover," advocating safe sex, and the gospel-flavored "I Had a Dream I Was Falling Through a Hole in the Ozone Layer," cumbersome title and all, are highlights. She makes it hard not to care, even as she winks through her tears.
Of course, some of Deee-Lite's lyrics can make you cringe ("I am a fire sign/Won't you feel my solar power"). "Fuddy Duddy Judge" is just a roll-call of societal ills, and the feline come-on, "Pussycat Meow," is little more than an excuse for Kier to do just that. Still, her sensuous coo lends weight to even the dippiest drivel, and the groove is always, well, deee-liteful. (Elektra)
In Tribute
There's an inherent danger in tribute albums. The performer is almost never the equal of the object of adoration. So it is with Schuur and her vocal valentine to Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington, Billie Holiday and many others.
Schuur has a powerful voice not always under tight control. Journeys up the scale often end in shrieks and squeals. When delicacy is needed, say in "Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out to Dry" (Vaughan), Schuur offers it up fortissimo. Just when you think she's captured the haunting " 'Round Midnight" (Carmen McRae), she tramples the moment with vocal excesses.
True, Schuur delivers a terrifically propulsive—albeit a bit too over the top—"How High the Moon" (Fitzgerald) and a soaring "The Best Is Yet to Come" (Nancy Wilson). But when she's done, you only want to hear the originals. (GRP)
Jon Secada
A Cuban-born Miamian, Secada has been contributing background vocals and compositions to Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine for five years. Stepping out on his own with his burnished, penetrating voice, Secada sounds like the tenor version of British singer Rick Astley: a romantic stylist who hasn't forgotten the importance of the big beat.
One listen to Secada's impassioned improvisations on "Dreams That I Carry" and "Do You Believe in Us" and it's apparent he has considerably more range than Astley. (And more language skills: Secada wrote or cowrote all but one of the 10 songs, including English and Spanish versions of "Just Another Day" and "Angel.")
"Always Something" is the real showstopper. Literally. It's a live recording of the acclaimed solo showcase Secada was given on the last Gloria Estefan tour. It's a soaring, bravura performance on which Secada free-falls through about three octaves.
Though the tone overall is a bit sappy, there's enough saving suave and sultry pop. Now that Gloria and her husband, Emilio, have encouraged Secada to move into the spotlight, it's going to be awfully hard to get him back in the chorus. (SBK)
I'll Take Romance
One of the most striking things about Susannah McCorkle is her intelligence. It's clear in her phrasing, in her choice of material, in the care that she gives the lyrics. After a somewhat disappointing mostly samba album, McCorkle is solidly back to her jazz roots with "That Old Feeling," "Lover Man," "I Thought About You" and such Rodgers and Hart classics as "Spring Is Here," from which McCorkle, an occasional throb in her voice, mines every bit of heartbreak. She also coaxes every last bit of aching bewilderment from "It Never Entered My Mind," which begins a capella and carries through with a very simple, effective accompaniment by Allen Farnham, pianist of McCorkle's backing quintet (which features Frank Wess on saxophone and flute).
McCorkle never seems to be singing by rote. Each song appears to be a catalog of her own experience. Things must have taken a bad turn for her romantically, you would think when listening to "Where Do You Start," Alan and Marilyn Bergman's chronicle of an estranged couple's attempt to divvy up their accumulated goods and emotional pain. You hear an account of newly discovered love in "A Beautiful Friendship" and the bouyantly delivered title song, and you smile. Things sounds as if they're going well for McCorkle. Certainly, they're going well for her fans. (Concord)
- Contributors:
- Jeremy Helligar,
- Joanne Kaufman,
- David Hiltbrand.
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!
