There are a whole slew of albums in the Pierce Memorial Archive
\nthat I bought for some reason or another that seemed like a good
\none at the time. Now, as I walk through the aisles, I wonder just
\nwhy I bought them in the first place.<\/p>\n
Take Debbie Gibson. When she was at the pinnacle of her fame, I
\nwas in high school, happily banging my head to all things metal. We
\nmacho men wouldn’t have been caught dead even looking at one of her
\nalbums at Sound Warehouse, much less owning one – we were just too
\ncool for that.<\/p>\n
So how do I explain having an album like her 1989 sophomore
\neffort
\nElectric Youth<\/i> in my collection? Better still, how do I
\nexplain at the 10-year reunion later this year that there are some
\nsongs on it that I enjoy?<\/p>\n
Gibson had rocketed to fame with her debut effort
\nOut Of The Blue<\/i>, containing syrupy-sweet but mostly harmless
\ndance-pop mall rock. With her second release, she starts to inject
\na little more maturity into the music, but the end result is still
\nthe same.<\/p>\n
I’ll get the major complaint out of the way first: I can
\nunderstand the use of synthesized drums on such an album, but do
\nyou have to rely on them for almost the
\nwhole fribbin’ album<\/i>? Only one track uses live drums – and
\nI’m sorry, but I couldn’t tell that without reading the liner
\nnotes, almost like I was conditioned to hear the electronic
\nspurts.<\/p>\n
Gibson does move into the world of ballads well on
\nElectric Youth<\/i> through the track “Lost In Your Eyes” – but
\nthe drum sequencing does ruin the mood. (Not that it was used in
\nthis case, but that it just wasn’t structured to fit the song.) And
\nwhile this is a decent enough effort, it wasn’t strong enough to
\nreally push Gibson into that direction with her music.<\/p>\n
But for the most part,
\nElectric Youth<\/i> is really harmless fun for the teeny-bopper
\ncrowd. It’s non-threatening enough for the parents to listen to and
\nenjoy, and it’s poppy enough to keep Gibson’s fans happy. Tracks
\nlike “Love In Disguise,” “Helplessly In Love” (in which I swear I
\ncan hear a mandolin, even though I don’t see a credit for one) and
\nthe title track all capture the playfulness of Gibson’s music and
\nthe carefree feeling of youth.<\/p>\n
Maybe that’s the appeal I find in Gibson’s music. Instead of
\nworrying about how you’re going to meet all the bills for the
\nmonth, you hear Gibson singing about someone she’s fallen in love
\nwith but can’t be with, and you can’t help but to sympathize with
\nher. You don’t have to be female to know the feelings of unrequited
\nlove or giddiness of youth – and that’s what sucks the older
\nlistener in.<\/p>\n
Is
\nElectric Youth<\/i> a masterpiece? No, but it’s a decent enough
\neffort to warrant some attention from the listener. Besides, the
\ntime between mallrat pop and Marilyn Manson is too short as it
\nis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27302,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5776],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-38666","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-debbie-gibson","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38666","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=38666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38666"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}