Tag: romance

audio review : Out My Mind Just In Time ( song ) … Erykah Badu

This ten-minute-plus rhapsody plays like a collection of Badu song demos, but she should’ve limited it to the first one. Undercover Overlover, which takes up two minutes and a half, would be a short song by today’s standards, but it would be one of her best.

It’s a solemn heartbreak ballad; she’s singing about a longtime beau who “thinks he wants another”; led by a lonely piano eventually accompanied by what sounds like an even lonelier violin. This is deep and moody soap opera stuff. The other bits are comparatively anticlimactic.

my rating : 3 of 5

2010

audio review : New Amerykah : Part Two [ Return Of The Ankh ] ... Erykah Badu

audio review : The Lady In My Life ( song ) … Michael Jackson

The Lady In most people’s lives, at least at the beginning, is their mother, but Michael Jackson isn’t singing about Katherine. This is a song about a girlfriend. “Lay your body close to mine,” he croons with strong sexual undertones, “I can make you feel alright.”

It’s mostly about “love” though; the romantic kind that can make a gentleman resort to bombastic schoolyard poetry in order to express his true feelings. He and she become not just a couple but “two hearts in a beat of ecstasy”, whatever that’s supposed to mean.

Sweet nothings can be awwfully charming though, especially when they’re winter-blanketed in funky grooves and gorgeous melodies like these. Most popular songs are “love” songs and Michael Jackson’s are no exception, but this one may very well be his best.

my rating : 5 of 5

1982

audio review : Thriller ( album ) ... Michael Jackson

audio review : Led Zeppelin ( album ) … Led Zeppelin

audio review : Led Zeppelin ( album ) ... Led Zeppelin

Robert Plant sings these songs with intensity, which, considering every one is about romance gone bitter, may serve as psychotherapy. “Lots of people talk and few of them know,” he declares to a callous melody on Dazed And Confused, “the soul of a woman was created below.”

The implication is Hell. Perhaps that’s why there’s an image of The Hindenburg in flames on the album cover. Women often go from sweethearts to bitches if you stay with them long enough. This set; its biggest flaw being its lack of a proper title; is a theme to that fact.

my rating : 3 of 5

1969