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here are my thoughts on her albums from 81 onwards:
WDFFIN - i've grown to appreciate her RCA stuff more. sort of "iPod" era onward lol. i never played the lps much and rarely included them on mixed tapes and all back in the day. but now i do play them quite a bit. i actually like most of this lp. title track is fun, as is Never Too Late - this one sounds very early 80s to me lol. Mirror is great too although getting a bit carried away with the reverb. Two Can make is is the weakest track IMO. Work That Body is campy fun.
Silk - Fool For Your Love is not great. valiant attempt but not Diana. Turn Me Over i thought was fun. obviously not a serious track but a cute concept. Who is a good track. Love Lies too. I Am Me is ok. i do think the echo and reverb is again getting too heavy here
Ross - i think the problem here is it's a bit too disjointed. with Silk you had Hard Rock, ballad, light disco, raegae, etc. So it comes across as a bit of mix set of styles. Here though it seems out of sync. Pieces of Ice is odd. very odd. That's How You Start Over is a solid track but i think her vocals are a bit lackluster. she never really gets going. I think Girls is another 80s-campy fun song. sure it's not a mega hit or vocally dynamic. but it's fun and could have been great in a video. You Do It and Love and Loneliness are pretty good too. but like That's How, they need stronger more exciting vocals
Swept - overall solid production. i think the mixing and producing of her vocals here is much better. clean, not too much echo. but i think there are too many "throw away" tracks. Rescue Me, We are the children, Forever - i think 1 of those should have been kept and the others cut. needed more original material
Eaten - i'm not a fan of this set. Diana's voice has a nasality to it that IMO does NOT lead itself well to the Gibb falsetto sound. the guys have their own nasality to their tones and so it's too much. and i think the production of her vocals here is terrible too. too much echo, reverb, poor mixing. i do NOT like her breathy squeeky performance on More.
Red Hot - one of her most disjointed albums. the "throwback" to oldies tracks was fine as 1 song on her debut but i think the idea of a full album of this was not the right idea in her career at this time. a tv special is one thing. but she needed strong material and up to date content to keep her relevant in the record buying world.
Workin - i've almost never listened to this until just this past year. actually i've come to appreciate it a bit more. title track is a dud. but Bottom Line is great. Say We Can, Paradise, Going Through the Motions are all pretty good too.
Force Behind - not a fan of the title track. I'm not a huge Stevie fan so frankly i'm glad she never did a whole lp with him. but other tracks on here are much stronger. i do think the album is too heavy with ballads. Heart is good and so is When You tell Me. Heavy Weather could have been better - make it a bit more soul exciting. love battlefield
Box Set - Your Love is one i like a lot. It's A Wonderful Life sounds like Battlefield and Chain Reaction had a Love Child lolol. But she needed a more solid and contemporary dance song. Let's Make is ok but a bit too Kenny G
Take Me Higher - title track is a good track but not a fan of the lyrics. If You're Not Gonna - great song. lots of great ballads on here but gets a bit ballad heavy. I Thought We Were Still is gorgeous. as is Gone and the others. but needed more up tempo. I Will Survive was great but a year or two too late. the original had already had a resurgence and there was a popular techno/dance version released of Gloria Gaynor. so by the time Diana's came around, it wasn't very new or exciting
Everyday - He Lives In You
don't like these "moral" songs. again overall i like the album and the dance remixes of some of the tracks really were great. but those should have been the album version. like Cher's Believe. that wasn't some slow groove ballad. it was a hot dance track on the album and in remixes. that should have been the approach to Not Over You Yet
I Love You - as if they recorded her are a karaoke bar singing after too many sakes
Blue - stunning. i agree with a writer that said her jazz work in the early 70s was every bit as courageous, exciting and artistically important as anything Marvin or Stevie were doing
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