Back With A Heart review
OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN “Back With a Heart” (MCA Nashville)
Olivia Newton-John puts out a new album right on the heels of the 20th-anniversary re-release of “Grease,” one of the most popular movie musicals of all time in which she also starred. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
But it gets her in the news (in as much as seemingly endless coverage on “Entertainment Tonight” constitutes news), and boosts this perfectly innocuous collection of tunes looking for a home right into the top 10 country chart.
Although it’s being marketed as a country album, it’s hard to say just what Newton-John has in mind here. Her first single is also a re-release: another take of her huge hit, “I Honestly Love You,” again produced by David Foster, but to no appreciable improvement over the original version (even with Babyface Edmonds on board). She says she wanted to do it again before somebody else did; I say it’s because it’s a charming piece of pure pop that people will recognize and snatch right up… again.
You don’t get to be a big star like Newton-John without some sense of what listeners want, and she’s going after them all; stylistically, this disc is all over the place. “Closer to Me” starts out like it could be on the Lillith Fair repertoire (though it ends with a bit more bombast than those women are likely to produce), while “Under My Skin” recalls the aerobics workout of “Physical.” The title tune is perfectly suited for drive-time radio, while the only overtly country efforts “Fight for Our Love” and “Spinning His Wheels” sound like a pop singer striving for a country feel. Even the big-name Nashville session players can’t save this stuff. Only “I Don’t Wanna Say Goodnight,” by Al Anderson and Robert Ellis Orrall, comes off as a truly genuine effort. It’s my favorite among the 11 here, and I’ll bet we never hear it on the radio.
By James M. Tarbox