Customer Reviews

Some People's Lives

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

SOME PEOPLE'S LIVES was Bette Midler's first album since 1983's NO FRILLS. Throughout the 80s, she did a lot of movies (and yes some music for the BEACHES soundtrack). Released in 1990, there was a few hit singles, notably the inspirational "From A Distance", a song that has resonated with a lot of people the way that her hit "Wind Beneath My Wings" has. There's something for everyone here, some classic Bette camp material in "Miss Otis Regrets" and "One More Round", and some wonderful ballads. "Night And Day" and "The Girl Is On To You" are my favorites from the album, they are both strong ballads. The title track, a Janis Ian song, and "Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most", are other highlights. There's some fluffy pop in the form of "The Gift Of Love", "Moonlight Dancing" and "All of a Sudden". Lots of ballads, uptempos, just enough to satisfy any fan of Bette's!

Some People's Lives is one of those rare albums which I enjoyed from start to finish. Containing the hit From A Distance is only one reason to buy this album. Midler delivers a string of ballads that really strike a nerve and turn out the tears. The title track is almost frightening in its sadness and ability to touch on the basic human need for love. Gift of Love is powerful in its simplicity, He Was Too Good To Me\Since You Stayed Here will surely cripple anyone who has ever lost someone they truly loved. But Bette doesn't leave room between songs to get depressed. Right from the start we get a fast paced tune in the spirit of Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, and not long after comes the hilarious Miss Otis Regrets. Moonlight dancing is a fast paced ballad, but beautiful nonetheless. Hailed as one of Midler's best albums in a twenty year career as singer and actress, Bette adds a new star to her crown as the reigning Diva of the last two decades. This is a must have for any Midler fan, and a sure fire winner in any Pop collection.

Bette is truely a great singer and this album show cases that.All the songs are wonderfully.And the Divine Miss M did'nt let her fan's down.Truley one her great albulms in her singing of years.

I owned the tape for years and now I have the CD! This is Bette at her best! From the emotional piece "Day and Night" to the popular "From A Distance" it's a must own!

This is one of the best albums i've come to know. I have always had music in my life, being lucky enough to be born in a family with wonderful talent. The talent was realized. When I am working in the hospital, I have an mp3 player which gives me great comfort. This album has time and time again reminded me of the softer side of this world. Its a great sample of a great singer/actress/comedian. This woman has it all. The song, "the girl is onto you" is so touching. We all know a woman who has been taken advantage of emotionally, or otherwise. This one touches me deeply. Moonlight dancing has never let me sit down. Its got such a good flavour and strong lyrics....words fail me. Ive been listening to this album for almost 10 yrs now, and it will go on for many more. My youngest brother is finishing his studies and will be a conductor soon and will be taking requests. How I would love to hear the sharp piano strokes in "Ms Otis regrets" or "some people's lives". thanks Bette for such a comfort.

Along with "Songs For The New Depression" and "The Rose", this one is my favorite Bette album out of her 17-album catalogue. The songs here are just gorgeous, wooing me into being spellbound by the music. One of my favorites is the moderately successful single "Night And Day"-not to be mistaken for the Cole Porter hit. The music is ehtereal, and Bette's voice is great. "The Girl Is On To You" is close behind, with an excellent sax solo by Nino Tempo. Of course, the listener can't forget "From A Distance", a #2 single from 1990, with it's beautiful message of peace, love, hope, and the promise of God always being there. Bette does the song wonderfully. Honorable mentions are the "sad but true" ballad "Some People's Lives", the "fast-paced ballad" "Moonlight Dancing" (a Dance single in 1991), and the beautiful "Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most". Once again the saxophone during the musical break in the middle of the song is part of what makes this one shine. i urge all of you Bette fans to have this one in your collection; it should be manditory. Also, for any new-comer Bette fans out there, this may be the one to start with-you'll love it.

There was an almost palpable sense of disappointment among Bette Midler hipper fans when she (inevitably) moved further and further away from her ironic/iconic Miss M persona and became (on record at least) another sometimes-sensitive-sometimes-maudlin balladeer. It's understandable really: campiness bespeaks irony bespeaks a keen critical intelligence behind the glitz and the sentiment. If you read some of the early reviews, you'd get the impression that her spot on Andrews Sisters take-offs and sincere (but too frenzied) girl group covers were ultimately to be taken as being somehow subversive, that her full frontal embrace of the tacky was some kind of musical expression of a tart Pop Art sensibility.

And maybe it was, but keep in mind: camp's embrace of the tacky, the vulgar and the schlocky has a conservative side as well. And over time, that sentimental attachment to to "trash with flash" can easily evolve into plain ole "trash"itself. By the time Bette was recording numbers like "Wind Beneath My Wings" and "From A Distance," the hipsters had already fled in droves. One writer even called the latter tune--despite its pacifistic overtones--"background music for the Gulf War." How did that come about? You could probably write a dissertation on the topic. But it had--at least in part--to do with the fact that the song did not outrightly condemn warfare but rather found it all, well, very unfortunate.

A line like "I can't comprehend, what all this fighting's for" (other versions have it as "what all this war is for") can be taken in various ways. Certainly, it could be interpreted as your basic, "war is senseless" statement. But I'm sure there were those who put a quite different spin on it, i.e. "I can't comprehend what this fighting's for--but there MUST be a good reason." And both interpretations allow for the addendum, "Of course, it's all a damn shame."

Of course, only songwriter Julie Gold knows what was really intended. The whole tune is plenty ambiguous, and much of it may have even been intentional. Do things only look beautiful and peaceful FROM A DISTANCE because we're really not seeing things clearly (overlooking the guns, war and disease as if they did NOT exist)? Or is transcending or overcoming all that really the secret "hope of every man," and ultimately possible. And is it disconcerting or somehow encouraging to be told that God IS watching us--but "from a distance? Is the song skeptical? Hopeful? Or a little of both?

If any singer could have captured the ambiguity it would have been Bette Midler--the younger, edgier Bette Midler anyway. By 1990, Midler was not about irony so much anymore, although she could be as tart tongued and (acceptably) outrageous as ever in live performance. And on this record, a bit of her old sharpness shines through on a classic number like Cole Porter's "Miss Otis Regrets," but that was still something an old joke by the last decade of the 20th century.

But I began this review by suggesting that some critics--and a good number of fans too--had actually misinterpreted what the divine one was up to from the outset. Actually, Bette was always about putting on a great show, and that was about it. Sure her embrace of all kinds of styles and genres had its ironic side, but it was probably a mistake to stress the implicit criticism involved in such an ultimately gentle spoof. Camp is first and formost loving embrace and celebraton of the vulgarities and excesses of popular culture. In Bette Midler's case, it was more an embrace than a critique of same. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

A middle aged mom by the time of this recording, Bette was not out to turn the music world on its head. Another reviewer intriguingly related a track like "Moonlight Dancing" to the earlier "Do You Wanna Dance?" although that reviewer plainly didn't care for the newer song. I happen to like the gentle Caribbean feel to that number and some of the others on the record ("One More Time Girls"), although I would agree that there's little on this record as sublimely seductive--or as truly imaginative--as "Do Ya Wanna Dance," a snaky, slow tempo recasting of a rock'n'roll standard. Nor does she attempt to sneak in anything as arty as a Brecht/Weill number as she was wont to do in the early days. It's not totlly unfair to note that, in some ways, she IS treading water here.

On the other hand, Midler's readings of classic ballads really did improve over the years. Perhaps it was precisely because she was no longer worried about coming off hip and knowing (while simultaneously being sincere and heartfelt--no mean feat to pull off, as those first records demonstrate). When she tackles a number like "He Was Too Good To Me," she takes it seriously. And she doesn't OVERinterpret. It's actually quite lovely. And Janis Ian's title song is delivered with simple sincerity and real dignity.

By the 90s, Bette Midler's audience knew they what they could expect: a little sentiment, a little sass, a few send-ups, but nothing truly over the top. And Midler knew how to deliver all that. It must have been something of a relief for her in fact to not have to worry so much about the approval of hip tastemakers.

This DVD highlights so many of Bette Midler's talents; Her sensitivity , her sensuality, her mastery of complicated pieces, her ability to make you live what she is singing. The pathos of "Some People," the mixed comedy and tragedy of , "miss Otis Regrets," and her touching and inspirationsal, "From a Distance." She manages to be take you along for a musical ride and all I can say is,"Thanks, Bette!"

It is pretty much beyond dispute that Bette Midler is an extremely talented artist - a dynamic performer and skilled vocalist, one of the best. Up until the late 90's, I bought just about every one of her albums. Occasionally I had a few quibbles about her choice of material, but overall her efforts were successful. In my opinion, the albums that are most nearly perfect - the ones where the talent matches the material - are "Songs For The New Depression", "Broken Blossom" and this one. "New Depression" and "Broken Blossom" were released in the mid-70's; they represented to some extent a step from her early campy, performance-oriented material to more sophisticated and interpretive songs, both serious and comedic. "Some People's Lives" was released roughly 15 years later, when Bette had just re-established herself as an important pop presence due to the success of "Wind Beneath My Wings".

I remember how surprised I was when I first heard Bette singing, "GOD IS WATCHING US...from a distance". I said, what? But this was when she was making the transition from an "earthy mutha" to The Earth Mother. This song is, naturally, one of the main draws of the album, but by no means does it tell the whole story. There are other ballads, of course. The title song is a very affecting, beautifully sung mainstream ballad. Bette sings "Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most" with naivete, quite charming. Probably the best track is "Night And Day". It features vivid piano and strong percussion, and it has real power. It is truly an excellent example of adult contemporary pop at its best. The medley of "He Was Too Good To Me" and "Since You Stayed Here" is slightly on the dreary side for my taste, but well done for this type of song. Moving on to other material, "Miss Otis Regrets" is a return to the rowdy 40's style of Bette's classic "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy". It tells the tale of a wronged and vengeful woman who will now be unable to lunch with anyone, anymore, ever. The rest of the tracks are all variations on the pop/rock music of the period. "One More Round" and "Moonlight Dancing" have lively tropical or "island" rhythms and accents. "The Girl Is On To You" and "The Gift Of Love" are pretty, melodic pop tunes. The former is sung very sweetly, and the latter, one of the best on the album, is about as sincere as you can get. "All Of A Sudden" is dance-pop fluff (which I happen to like). The sound on the CD is good throughout. The very pleasing result of all this is that Bette shows the full range she was capable of at the time, without going too "over the top" in either direction, dramatic or humorous.

Bought this for my wife and one for her sister. They LOVE IT!! Thanks for doing a great job.

Music is clear, and CD cover is perfect!!