Consumer Guide Album

Jimmy Somerville: The Singles Collection [London, 1991]
As he fills out his technologically appointed hour and a quarter, the drag has nothing to do with mascara, pulling the educational "There's More to Love Than Boy Meets Girl" down toward the zipless Communards-period electrodance that surrounds it. But punch a few buttons and you get a 10- or 12-track tribute to great divas male and female. The predisco Bee Gees cover defines Somerville's context the way his thin, rapt, ethereal, sexy-by-fiat falsetto defines his devotional passion. Not only is the homoerotic the political--the high tenor is the political. B+