Kay Hanley appears to be one of those itinerant popsters who’s
\nbeen around the block a couple of times. The former lead vocalist
\nof alt-rock band Letters to Cleo (as well as the voice behind
\nJosie And The Pussycats<\/i> — a dubious credit at best), she’s
\nnow gone solo, and has released her first (and apparently
\nlong-delayed) solo CD,
\nCherry Marmalade<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Hanley’s music is described on the Rounder Records site as
\n‘infectious, sassy pop’. That’s a pretty fair assessment. This
\nisn’t lofty music with high pretensions; this is a woman with a
\nbacking band singing about relationships and other personal things.
\nAs long as you understand that, this isn’t too bad. It’s well
\nproduced and engineered, and the backing musicians are competent.
\nThere are a couple of misjudgments in the mix (specifically “Mean
\nStreak” — someone get that woman’s vocals out of the sewer,
\nplease) but overall there are no technical flaws on the CD.<\/p>\n
Hanley’s voice is\u2026pleasant. It won’t send chills up and
\ndown your spine, it won’t blow you away with its power and grace,
\nbut it’s nice to listen to. It’s undemanding. Fact is,
\n‘undemanding’ might describe this entire CD; it doesn’t ask
\nanything of you, doesn’t take too many chances, doesn’t stretch any
\nboundaries. It’s not quite down to the puerility of girl-pop, but
\nthis isn’t Sarah Brightman. Hell, this isn’t even Sheryl Crow.<\/p>\n
There are a few tracks that stand out. The opening “Fall” is
\ncatchy and fun; “Satellite” works Hanley’s vocal style a little,
\nand “Sheltering Sky” has a hook like Peter Pan’s nemesis. There are
\na few other tracks that don’t work as well; “Shady Saves The Day”
\nis mostly flat, and “Princely Ghetto” didn’t do anything at all for
\nme.<\/p>\n
I suppose it’s what you should expect from a CD titled
\nCherry Marmalade<\/i>. Mostly sweet and bright, but on some level
\ninsubstantial. If you like your pop plain, this CD is for you; fans
\nof more complexity should look elsewhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":26243,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6782],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-37465","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-kay-hanley","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37465","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\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37465"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37465"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}