Consumer Guide Album

Gladys Knight & the Pips: All Our Love [MCA, 1987]
The CD-era duration does indulge Knight's middle-class vices. At twenty-eight minutes for six songs that are longer on melodrama than break beats, the second side is like a suburban living room that seems overfurnished even though all the pieces are in the best contemporary taste. But Knight has one of those burgundy voices, designed to age, and since her albums have rarely done it justice, the edgy writing and overall strength of this multiproducer soul-dance-pop-whatever comeback is a gift. B+