Winter Light Linda Rondstadt (Warner) Always a strong but characterless singer, Linda Rondstadt was the Mariah Carey of her day, a dazzling, empty display of technique. In recent years she's gone from bombast to pretty listenable adult contemporary. Rondstadt’s latest, Winter Light (3.5), is--more surprisingly to me than anyone--a rock-solid set of songs, nicely crafted and powerfully sung. The MOR syrup gets poured on pretty thick at times, but that voice keeps things afloat. If the mere thought of this stuff makes you queasy, you're probably smarter than | am.

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

Music From the Motion Picture Soundtrack

k.d. lang

(Warner)

k.d. lang’s latest project, the soundtrack to Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (based on Tom Robbins’ book about the girl with the big thumbs), is a musical sketchbook covering a myriad of styles ranging from polka to waltz (all of which

_ sound more than a little surreal in lang’s hands). lang also delivers some Ingenue-styled balladry with songs like “Hush Sweet Lover” and displays a new strength with the funky “Just Keep Me Moving,” a catchy single. The mad sweep of the thing also shows that lang hasn’t lost her sense of humour. It’s got loads of filler--] only count seven actual songs (and | use the term loosely); even the album’s best cut, “Just Keep Me Moving,” doesn’t particularly go anywhere. Nonetheless, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (3) broadens the range of one of pop’s most interesting talents.

now just wish she’d Junkies’ increasingly

Faithful Hi-Five (BMG)

Rock, Come

Baby Come, and upped the aggression for

Move it Like their last album, Lost

This) would Together, with typically

suggest heavy bland results. With med like Margo Timmins was whispering in your ear,! sexuality in the Five Days in July

p. Timmins’ hushed vocals no longer suit the __ lyrics but the (2) they go in album doesn’t the opposite

ack Eyed Man, though more complex and mel Timmins’ voice doesn’t galvanize the band’s sound-- the mark. Remarkably uninvolving and forgettable.

Together Alone

Crowded House

(EMI)

There’s something in the genetics of Beatle- derived pure pop bands that limits their life- span--eventually they go cold (see Squeeze, XTC, McCartney himself and now Crowded House). Crowded House have never displayed much substance, but they've always provided fine ear-candy. On Together Alone (2) they seem especially hollow, no thanks to a spacious mix that takes a lot of emotional conviction to fill up. Together Alone is clearly their attempt at a Sgt. Pepper, and like all failed masterpieces, listening to it will make you squirm. Crowded House simply lack the emotional weight to get this done, and the world beats, distorted guitars and all sound ridiculous. Together Alone is an ambitious failure that misses about as badly as Depeche Mode’s Songs of Faith and Devotion.

Swing Batta Swing Five Days in July

K7 Blue Rodeo

(BMG) (Warner)

“Come baby come baby baby come Blue Rodeo have always

come”-- with a life like that, what would been a fine singles act, but is album to be like? The their albums generally

you expe album’sSong titles (Let's Bang, Body consist of a lot of indistinct

country-rock. The band

direction, a minor

come off overly : improvement. Rootsy

strong. “Come

at the centre of their sound. — Baby Come” is and mellow, the album edecessor, the strong by far the best works best at its most ically elusive. But song, but the haunting (“Five Days in

May,” “What is This Love”); otherwise, they a bit better than twang along like a hundred average. (3) other country-rock bands. —S.M. Blue Rodeo remains a highly derivative and anonymous band, good

it simply misses remainder of the album is just

The third album from the boys from Waco, Texas is, like most later releases from groups, not up to the level obtained in the original. Their songs consist mainly of dreary teenage love stories, ‘| miss you, | love you, | want you girrlll’ and after a while it becomes tiring. Songs like “Miss U Girl”, “Ready 4 U 2 Love”, and “What Can | Say to You (To Justify My Love)” make the listener glad that puberty is over. (2.5)

-S.M.

intentions aside. Five Days in July bores me.

Try Anything Once Alan Parsons

(Arista) Try Anything Once, by Alan Parsons, is a sorry attempt at recreating the success of years past. Alan Parsons over the years has had great success producing, engineering and performing

releases for various artists, but unforunately, this album seems outdated and uninspired. Several years ago this album may have had one or two successful releases but today, this album cannot hold its own. ‘Oh Life (There Must Be More)’ is the only single from this album which may be capable of even meager success. Sure, Try Anything Once features the Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Andrew Powell, but even this addition did little to add to the substance of this album's

material. For those of you who still enjoy the synthesized sound of early 80's popular music, enjoy. For myself, this rates a 1.5 and only because the

lifeless material on Try Anything Once managed to bore me to sleep on many a night. --Dana Dennis

[ xpress january twenty-fifth 1994 page 14 |