Sinead O`Connor
Am I Not Your Girl (Ensign/Chrysalis) (STAR) 1/2
The scorched-earth intensity of O`Connor`s previous two albums, ”The Lion and the Cobra” and ”I Do Not Want What I Haven`t Got,” make the lush orchestrations of ”Am I Not Your Girl” a letdown. Make no mistake, O`Connor invests everything she`s got in these show standards, particularly the searing ”Success Has Made a Failure of Our Home.” But what was she thinking when she hired a big band to back her up, complete with strings, horns and every cheesy Vegas interlude imaginable? Even O`Connor`s rock bands have always been little more than serviceable props; her best music is often made in the sparest possible settings. So the introspection she brings to these tunes often clashes with the brassy instrumentation, and some (”Don`t Cry For Me Argentina”) are beyond redemption. When Rickie Lee Jones tried a similar gambit last year on ”Pop Pop,” she dug to the songs` essence by stripping them of their Broadway trappings and rearranging them for an acoustic trio. Too bad O`Connor didn`t do the same.
Ratings:
Excellent (STAR)(STAR)(STAR)(STAR)
Good (STAR)(STAR)(STAR)
Fair (STAR)(STAR)
Poor (STAR)
