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Songs
for the New Depression (1976) Rolling Stone Magazine (RS 208), Stephen Holden
Consumer Guide, Robert Christgau
Publication Unknown, Author Uknown (1976) It's
difficult to pinpoint-exactly what is wrong with this album. There is nothing
artistically PERHAPS the most obvious lack is a sense of excitement. Expecting to find live performance energy on a record is-a major mistake for any listener but one would hope to find more drive than there is on "Songs." It may well be that like Barbra Streisand and others, Midler draws her persuasive abilities from an audience and not necessarily from the songs. The audience and the applause are near and dear to her heart. not the lyrics of individual works. There also seems to be a certain lack of focus to the album. Three producers - with three different styles - worked on "Songs" with two cuts each from Arif Mardin and Joel Dorn and the rest by Moogy Klingman, a member of Todd Rundgren's Utopia. As a result, the album as a whole lacks unity of perception. Individually, however, most of the cuts work rather well. A disco version of "Strangers in the Night," jarring at first, proves surprisingly strong after repeated listening. Midier does well by Phoebe Snow's "I Don't Want the Night to End," Klinngman's "Let Me Just Follow Behind." and especially, Tom Waits, "Shiver Me Timbers." Her version of Bob Dylan's "Buckets of Rain" sung with Dylan is a triumph. That old chestnut "Tragedy" simply drags along, however, "Old Cape Cod," is done just as the Andrews Sisters did it, which makes it a bit too similar to "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy." Midler's own "Rocky" and "Marahuana" should prove to be fine stage pieces. but neither is particularly striking on record. Midler's
future is unlikely to be decided by "Songs For the New Depression."
She is too great a stage performer and vocalist for her to ever have to return
to the New York cabaret scene. Unfortunately, "Songs" is not as strong
or as indicative of her talents as it might , have been.
Entertainment Weekly, Jess Cagle
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It
took Bette Midler two and a half years to make her third album. But all Songs
for the New Depression does is once again raise the question of how this gifted
stage personality can capture on a record the ebullience, spontaneity and imagination
of her performances. Clearly, as her selection of good, recent songs by Bob Dylan.
Tom Waits, Nick Holmes and Phoebe Snow indicates, Midler wishes to be regarded
as a versatile recording artist of mostly contemporary material as well as a popular
entertainer. Yet these are the wrong songs sung poorly. Midler sounds so tense
and intimidated by studio problems that her personality is scarcely evident on
this album. Ultimately, Songs for the New Depression is a failure because it comes
to life only in its trivial endeavors, which is exactly what wasn't supposed to
happen.
with her has been her best. A revival of the Patti Page hit "Old Cape Cod"
is comfortably nostalgic. On "Marahuana," an obscure Thirties film tune,
Midler camps it up a la Carmen Miranda to re-create the period piece in her own
image. Though a very trivial song, it's at least fun.
It's
going too far to claim that she's taken on a corporate personality--a very unusual
individual does definitely peek out through the curtain of groupthink that hides
these songs from the singer and from us. But that individual seems to have taken
on so many advisers because she's afraid of herself, and such fear is not attractive
in an artist of Bette Midler's power. No matter what your voice teachers tell
you, wackiness is not something to modulate. C+
offensive
about it. Midler is in good voice her backup musicians are strong and well chosen
and the mix of solid contemporary material and older works is not objectionable.
Sounds
like Bette stayed out too late at Studio 54. A disco version of ''Strangers in
the Night''? Yes, it was the '70s, but that's no excuse. D