Released: 1997 according to Amazon, though I would have sworn it was 1996
Purchased: I'm thinking four, maybe five years ago? From Amazon's WarehouseDeals subsidiary, if I recall correctly.
Playthrough:
The title track is one of Cyndi's best "big pop songs," along with Girls Just Want to Have Fun and Money Changes Everything. Her moans on the verses are everything.
The Ballad of Cleo and Joe is a little hard to listen to at first because it's so beat-heavy, but not in a Steps four-on-the-floor kind of way. It's hard to explain. It just has a strong, uneven rhythm that's a little unsettling. Once I got a minute or so into it though, it clicked. The lyrics are apparently meant to be about a drag queen, but they could just as easily be about a transwoman or a non-binary person experimenting with their gender identity and expression, so it's close to my heart in that way.
Fall Into Your Dreams is also difficult to listen to, and doesn't really offer anything the way Cleo and Joe does.
You Don't Know is another of my favorite Cyndi songs. It's a big slice of True Blue-/Kiss-type pure pop but with pointed lyrics. There's just so much to love about it - the brilliantly subtle key change; its use of my favorite lyrical trick, using a word twice with different meanings ("Left suppresses right, right suppresses left, so what's left, and what's right?"). Should've been huge, but I guess the "bullshit" lyric probably put a damper on it.
Love to Hate is filler. I don't even have anything more to say about it.
Hot Gets a Little Cold is also pretty fillery, but it's really pretty.
Unhook the Stars is essentially a lesser Hat Full of Stars album track. Pleasant and passable, but nothing special.
Searching is very '90s house. Not altogether a good thing.
Say a Prayer is, dare I say, the worst song on the album. What's a melody, precious?
Mother is also somewhat lacking in the melody department, but it holds together better. It's okay.
Fearless was my original favorite. I love the lyrics, and though the production again renders it a little hard to play, I think the dulcimer adds that something to it.
Brimstone and Fire is about ... bisexuality? I think? It's a story song about meeting a woman and developing a relationship with her. The chorus is lax, but the verses are nice, aside from the occasional bad lyric ("I make spaghetti, she brings cake / I make spaghetti with tomato sauce because that's all I can make"... seriously?!).
Verdict: Far from Cyndi's best work, though it has a few gems. I think it's just way too of-its-time, and not straightforward enough for me, tunewise. 5/10.
Standout: You Don't Know
No comments:
Post a Comment