Customer Reviews

First of a Million Kisses

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The album is something like 20 years old now, and the band imploded soon after it was released, but this is a close-to-perfect collection of wonderful acoustic pop music. You've heard "Perfect"... the rest of the album lives up to this track's promise.

Edie Reader is in possession of a voice that works magic on the slightest of phrases. Which is why "The First Of a Million Kisses" was the best reason to ever hear her sing. Guitarist and songwriter Mark Nevin wrote a batch of songs that were almost all - pardon the stretch here - "Perfect." He tackled forms from light dancehall to country swing and Edie made them all sound like they were the most urgent messages on the face of the planet.

Hence a song as pure and guiless as "Perfect." I remember hearing this CD from a friend at RCA and immediately shoving all the other CDs on my desk to one side so I could listen to it over and over, for most of that week. Out of all the music I was sifting through, Fairground Attraction sounded the most lifelike. To this day, I am amazed at how well this disc has held up. A song like "Station Street" can still get me choked up, as can "Allelujah."

Most of the playing here is organic and airy, and the production kept things uncluttered and uncompressed. It's kept "The First Of a Million Kisses" from falling into a space where an album's sound traps it to their times instead of becoming timeless. And any singer that can give me goosebumps (as Edie does at the end of "Whispers") will always have a place in my CD collection.

This CD is part bubble gum pop, part ballad and part smoky nightclub jazz singer.