RSSScandal Featuring Patty Smyth [extended]
- Warrior [Columbia, 1984] C
- Never Enough [Columbia, 1987] B-
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Consumer Guide Reviews:
Warrior [Columbia, 1984]
The ryffs keep the treadmyll moving with nary a twytch, not once does a lyric offer a detail of behavior or decor, or even a real metaphor--the sexist twaddle of Nyck Gylder's "stereo jungle child" in the title chartbuster, now transmogrified into lyberated twaddle because a woman is singing, is as hot as it gets. C
Patty Smyth: Never Enough [Columbia, 1987]
I'm probably overrating this record a little. Certainly there are times when its big, every-hair-in-place production makes the big, barely controllable emotions she's going for sound hopelessly false, and from rejected partner Billy Steinberg to new producer Rick Chertoff, the songcraft is manufactured Springsteen. Yet something just slightly bruised in Smyth's big voice recalls the pop axiom that manufacture and integrity aren't mutually exclusive. Kind of like with Katrina Leskanich, only not so's you'd play the album on your own free will. And most would say I overrate Katrina Leskanich. B-