Consumer Guide Album

Jimmie Dale Gilmore: Spinning Around the Sun [Elektra, 1993]
Never one for automatic poetry, Gilmore chooses to showcase precisely four of the new songs he's managed in the past two years, and even though Butch Hancock and Al Strehli provide appropriate camouflage, somebody up there must have expected a grander statement, because this major-label follow-up is gussied up like just that. The voice transmutes Major Tom into Roy Orbison, the production glistens like Garth, and fast or slow the tempos never waver. All of which may strike the pure of heart as icky, or inappropriate, but I doubt I'll hear a more gorgeous country record--maybe a more gorgeous record--anytime soon. And unlike "After Awhile", this one doesn't let up--ends with a spooky Lucinda Williams duet and three of those four new songs, two of which were definitely worth the trouble. A