Two Steps to the Top
Olivia Newton-John -If You Love Me, Let Me Know (MCA 411).
Ms. Newton-John (let’s call her Olivia) has a knack for knocking out perky top/forty hits. Her first was a top-ten version of Dylan’s “If Not For You,” then came her big hit of “Let Me Be There,” and now a follow up to that tune, called “If You Love Me.” As a singer of car music, she rates higher than as an LP performer.
Perhaps four songs on this album are truly worthwhile, the rest slip right past the listener largely as non-entities. Somehow, Olivia fails to penetrate these songs; her vocal performances seem only to polish the surface of the songs, instead of taking them from the inside and making them her own.
The one tune on which she comes close to being truly moving is “I Love You, I Honestly Love You.” Here she nears sounding like she really means it. As for most of the rest: cute, but no cigar.