Talk On Corners Grand Rapids MI

Talk On Corners

The Corrs

Atlantic Records, 1998

REVIEW BY: Duke Egbert

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 06/19/1999

I had...and still have...high hopes for the Irish pop/rock/Celtband The Corrs. When they're on, their harmonies are brilliant;Andrea, Sharon, and Caroline Corr have a preternatural ability forhaunting melodies, Sharon's fiddle playing is magical, and JohnCorr is a fine instrumentalist. Save for Canada's The Rankins,they're the most talented Celt/pop vocal ensemble out there. So Ibought Talk On Corners, their second CD, as soon as it came out --and have played it perhaps three times since then.

Sophomore slump hits with a vengeance, and it's a damned shame.There's no getting around it; on their first album, the Corrs werean ethereal, richly harmonic band weaving pop sensibility withtraditional Irish melodies and instruments. On Talk On Corners, they're Riverdance meets Wilson Phillips,and it's enough to make you wince.

The lyrics, always the Corrs' weakest part, have slipped intoinsipidity at several points -- "And I would be preening inparadise // If I were always beside him like a Siamese..." Please.This vapid, wide-eyed guy-worshipping mentality is laced throughoutthe CD like the trail of a saccharine snail; it's unworthy of thetalent, and more appropriate for the latest Britney N'Sync CD. Ifthis is what working with Carole Bayer Sager causes, I suggest anantidote be worked out for the sake of humanity.

Another problem is a definite manifestation of too-many-cookssyndrome. With seven producers for fourteen tracks, it's impossibleto gain any sort of consistent sound from Talk On Corners. Tracks like their cover of Fleetwood Mac's"Dreams" are the best reflection; why is it that a gorgeous coverin three part harmony was sullied by a drum machine ? And a badly programmed drum machine at that? John Corr canprogram a drum machine -- he did so on the Rankins' "Weddings,Wakes, and Funerals". So why did producer Oliver Leiber screw it uphere? The Corrs should have stuck with a horse that runs andretained former Chicago producer David Foster for all the tracks onthis CD, as they did on their first CD, Forgiven Not Forgotten.