 Vanessa Williams Never a good sign when a CD sounds utterly disposable a year after it sounded pretty fresh. That means that another year and it'll sound majorly tired, and perhaps will become interesting again in like, seven or eight years? But in this case that means interesting in the same way those early 90s Belinda Carlisle albums are interesting. I mean, you pick one up in the bargain bin and think "Well, for $1.99 …" but you know damn well it wouldn't really be worth it even at that price. Next, aside from having a stunningly attractive cover (my favorite shade of blue provides the color scheme, plus Ms. Williams isn't exactly hard on the eyes), is a pretty lightweight R&B outing from 1997, and even more so in the wake of that era's spate of great R&B/hip-hop singles. The album actually sounds a bit dated already, not helped by touches like the slightly-too-soon echoes of "I Can't Wait" by Nu Shooz on "Happiness." That song becomes "hip" to sample when, maybe 2004? The single from Next was, if memory serves, "Who Were You Thinkin' 'Bout?," an unconvincing "anger" type of song that tries to "spice up" Vanessa's image in sort of the same way Olivia Newton-John tried to "spice up" hers in the early 80s. Vanessa's dilemma is she can't "spice up" her image too much, or immediately people are thinking of certain grainy "art photos" of her in bondage collar and not much else. So this single tries to be semi-sexy, semi-angry, "nastily" addressing a cheating lover, but it just sort of sits there. Could have used the line "Does she wear a bondage collar like I do/does she pose with other women too?/Was she Miss America like I was?" and then the last part rhyming with "fuzz," but I can't go there. Memorable moments from the album: "First Thing on Your Mind," a great soul/pop song, "Lost Without You" (not that memorable actually, but a good Vanessa Williams ballad), "The Easiest Thing" (maybe that was the single? I can't actually recall). The rest of the album has the expected sameyness you'd expect from edgeless mainstream R&B albums, plenty of filler that doesn't stand out as good or bad. The closer, "Oh How the Years go By," has the feel of a "Colors of the Wind"-type Disney song, and would make a nice end-credits song for some fairly unmemorable film about a mother and daughter reuniting after years of feuding. It's all fine mood music, but frankly when it's done you'll be looking toward a new CD and shouting "Next!"
Review by Giant Boomerang |