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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great singing, good songs, June 13, 2003
I would certainly recommend this album. Good songs, great singing. "Follow me" is gorgeous, and "My Tamborine" is seductive, playfully demanding, and delightfully feminine. These ladies should have gotten a lot more attention then they did, yet big-time success always seemed to elude them. Why did they consistently stay below pop radio's radar? They were drop-dead gorgeous, very talented and seemed to be quite warm and approachable. Why then the resistence of pop radio? Most likely because the composition style of their songs harken back to the early seventies, without the analog bare-bones production qualities that gave that era's music its distinctive sound. These ladies wrote songs that could have easily fit into the pre-disco phase of pop music, which might not have had the appeal in the mid-nineties as it did way back when. "Wild Orchid" does sound very slightly overproduced, but the ladies can sing so well as to more than compensate for their slick production values. While all the songs are quite well-written, I believe that radio during the early to mid-nineties was looking for the grunge thing, not the attractive pop sensibilities that Wild Orchid had in abundance. If they had arrived on the scene twenty years earlier they would have been huge; even if they had come out ten years after they did, they could have given Britney and Christina a run for their money. They just weren't "at the right place at the right time", and in show business, that's a killer. Another reason why this group wasn't bigger might have been the decision to present themselves as a trio, rather than bringing Stacy Ferguson out front (a la Diana Ross and the Supremes). If you listen to some of Wild Orchid's music after Stacy's departure, it's more restrained and a bit less inspired. Miss Ferguson was the member most able to shine on her own. Perhaps if the group had capitalized on Stacy's incredible pipes and notable beauty, they would have hit bigger. Understandably, the ladies are friends and probably didn't want to encourage jealousy or ego-trips. Apparently they choose their friendship over doing what was necessary for success. That's rare these days, and quite admirable. It's a good record, boyant and lively, even inspiring at times. As Mark Knopfler once said, "It was right, it was just that the time was wrong."
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by Wild Orchid 
