I recently experienced a first for me as a parent. When Paula
\nCole burst forth onto AOR radio with her hot “Where Have All The
\nCowboys Gone?” my daughter, who was then all of 12 months old,
\nwould start bopping back and forth in her car seat or highchair to
\nthe rhythm. When she figured out the mechanics of standing, she
\nwould sway – and eventually fall – pretty close to the tempo of the
\nsong. I ended up going out and buying her the CD single for her
\nfirst birthday.<\/p>\n
If only the rest of her second album
\nThis Fire<\/i> was as solid. There are some excellent moments on
\nthis one, but for the most part, Cole wanders somewhat aimlessly in
\na haze of frustration, freedom and anger.<\/p>\n
While it has been overplayed to death on the radio, there is no
\ndenying that “Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?” is an excellent
\nsong. The main character’s thoughts flow from when she first met
\nthe man of her dreams who would sweep her off her feet to today –
\nwhere the only sweeping being done is the kitchen floor by her. Her
\n“John Wayne,” meanwhile, spends more time with his cronies than
\nwith her. Ka-pow.<\/p>\n
Cole – who reminds me a lot of Tori Amos, without the weirdness
\nand with even more hystrionics – seems to write a lot about
\nfrustrations women feel from leering and sexual innuendoes (“No
\nmore sex-starved teachers trying to touch my ass” from “Tiger”) to
\nsocietal views of a strong-minded and strong-willed woman (“Call me
\na bitch in heat” from “Throwing Stones”), this album is an
\nemotional purge for Cole. She seems to want to express her
\nindividuality and her freedom to be a woman of the ’90s – which
\ncould also explain the reason she maintains the disgusting habit of
\nnot shaving her underarms. (Four words:
\nshave yer fuckin’ pits<\/i>! It wasn’t attractive with Patti
\nSmyth, either.)<\/p>\n
The most recent single, “I Don’t Want To Wait,” shows off the
\nrange of Cole’s vocals even better than her first hit, and seems to
\njustify the success she’s had so far. Even the track “Hush, Hush,
\nHush,” featuring Peter Gabriel, blew me away when I first heard it
\non my daughter’s CD single.<\/p>\n
And while Cole’s musicianship is by no means in question – she
\nis a much more controlled pianist than Amos, and she plays a much
\nwider variety of instruments – her songwriting still leaves quite a
\nbit to be desired. Songs like “Me” shine, while others like
\n“Carmen” and “Mississippi” fail to catch my interest.<\/p>\n
Another disturbing feature is Cole’s use – or, should I say,
\nmisuse – of vocals, namely the orgasmic-cum-primitive groans and
\ngrowls passing for vocals on tracks like “Tiger” and “Nietzche’s
\nEyes.” Even my wife cringed from time to time.<\/p>\n
Some of my readers may argue that I will never be qualified to
\nreview this one or to understand it, for the simple reason that I
\nposess a penis. I can hear them now: “You’ll never understand it,
\n’cause you’re a man.” Possibly – but let me argue that I found
\n“Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?” to be a very poignant work, and
\neven made me wonder if I was spending enough time with the missus.
\nStill, I admit there may be some merit to that argument.<\/p>\n
And it’s not that I thought
\nThis Fire<\/i> was a terrible album. I’ve listened to it five
\ntimes in the last week – three times in the day that I wrote this
\nreview – and it failed to capture my interest enough (save for a
\nfew songs) to rank as a great effort. It’s passable, though it does
\nget a little better with repeated listens.<\/p>\n
There’s no doubt that Cole has earned her moment in the
\nspotlight – and if Amos continues to decline as she has her last
\ntwo albums, she could become the next leader of the acoustic “grrl”
\nmovement. I just wish that there was a little more than three songs
\nto recommend on
\nThis Fire<\/i> to justify buying it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24483,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5793],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-35687","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-paula-cole","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=35687"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=35687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}