Customer Reviews

Revenge

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The critics hated this, but they also hated "At 17" and "Between the Lines". both #1 records for Ian. She has always used the best musicians available; Steve Gadd & Willie Weeks fill in admirably the spaces left by Richard Davis et al in her earlier work. I know this came on the heels of "Breaking Silence", so everyone expected a moody noir piece - but its refreshing to hear Ian's most commercial material, with choruses you can sing along to, lyrics with insight, the works! Of all her albums, this has to be my favorite, because I can play it tooling around in my car, right next to Back Street Boys and Puff Daddy. If she were male, if she were 19 or 20 years old, this album would have been platinum.

This album was panned by the critics but if you are a fan of the "At Seventeen" era Janis Ian, this album is great. Most of the tunes on this album are catchy and remind me of why I liked Janis Ian to begin with. My favorites cuts are "When Angels Cry," "Tenderness" and "Take Me Walking In The Rain." The songs are a little sappy (and yes a little depressing) but isn't that why so many of us liked her in the first place?

I consider Janis Ian to be one of the finest songwriters of our era. There's no such thing as a bad Janis Ian CD. You may like some more than others at certain times, but you will learn that over time others will percolate to the top, depending on what's going on in your life. The sheer depth and breadth of her work is amazing. Sharing her birth year, and, it seems, a bit of her attitude towards life, I can very well relate to her work as it has grown over her career and lifetime. Yet there's so much "out there" it seems I can always find something new. How cool is that?