When I was a little boy, I would raid my parents\u2019 record collections, take them to my little kid\u2019s record player, and absorb the music (or, in the case of my dad\u2019s collection, the comedy of Bill Cosby\u2014it was a different time) while watching the labels spin. I remember fondly snagging my mom\u2019s copies of Bette Midler\u2019s first two albums, watching the Atlantic label rotate in a hypnotic fashion.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s much different, I have to admit, listening to The Divine Miss M<\/i>, Midler\u2019s 1972 debut effort, on CD\u2026 for one thing, the label moves too damn fast to be hypnotic. Looking back, it seems weird that a five-year-old kid would listen to an album like this incessantly. Some of it remains amazingly fresh, though, and is a powerful first statement from Midler.<\/p>\n
Right from the opening track \u201cDo You Want To Dance,\u201d the listener knows they are in Midler\u2019s world, and we\u2019re going to follow her journey. This might mean that certain arrangements undergo some changes\u2014some of which work (\u201cSuperstar\u201d), some of which fall short of the mark (\u201cLeader Of The Pack\u201d almost seems akin to speed metal due to the increasing tempo shifts).<\/p>\n
When Midler plays the arrangements closer to the mark, the songs seem to gel much better. Yes, some pronoun changes occur on her cover of John Prine\u2019s \u201cHello In There,\u201d but this particular track remains, to my ears, the strongest effort on the disc. And, let\u2019s not forget her famous cover of The Andrews Sisters\u2019 \u201cBoogie Woogie Bugle Boy,\u201d which nearly sounds like a perfect clone (and I don\u2019t use that word as any kind of slight).<\/p>\n
If there is an underlying weakness to The Divine Miss M<\/i>, it sometimes feels like the ballads on this disc weigh down the rest of the disc. If they had limited them to \u201cDo You Want To Dance\u201d and \u201cSuperstar,\u201d this would have been more than satisfactory. But \u201cAm I Blue\u201d just feels like it drags on indefinitely. It\u2019s not that Midler can\u2019t handle the material; it just seems like too much melancholia, too soon. (I am well aware that \u201cHello In There\u201d is also technically a ballad, but it is so expertly handled that it nearly improves on Prine\u2019s original take.)<\/p>\n
Midler\u2019s side-commentary humor during a few of the tracks also tends to distract from the overall performances\u2014never mind that this would become a trademark of hers on her self-titled follow-up disc, particularly on \u201cTwisted.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the end, it\u2019s not just Midler\u2019s vocal performance that assures success for The Divine Miss M<\/i>; it\u2019s her cast of backing musicians. The pedigree behind her is astounding, from Barry Manilow on piano to having backing vocals from the likes of Cissy Houston and Melissa Manchester, not to mention the bass work from Ron Carter and drums by Ray Lucas.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t honestly say I\u2019d make this album part of my regular rotation nowadays, only because my musical tastes have become so expansive. But there was a joy in listening to The Divine Miss M<\/i> again for the first time in what had to be over 40 years, and it still holds up well as a testament to the vocal talent Midler had\u2014and still has.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34597,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8326],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-46445","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-bette-midler","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46445","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=46445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46445"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}