Consumer Guide Album

Teena Marie: It Must Be Magic [Gordy, 1981]
I have my usual slow-fast problems with this pheenom, and I admit that all four (out of nine) slow ones give her overripeness time to turn. But no matter how rotten you think the liner poem is (and cf. Bob Dylan, etc.), you gotta dig that flowers-and-butterflies dress. It's her thing, you know? The fast ones are colorful and juicy, too--squooshy with funk slides and compulsive puns, so unguarded in their emotionality you'd fear for her sanity if she weren't so tough. And on one of the slow ones she quotes that liner poem and makes you like it. A-