Everybody's Angel - review

Tanita Tikaram made a both artistic and commercial dream debut with her 1988 release 'Ancient Heart'. She had hardly outgrown adolescence and hadn't even been involved with music seriously for two years, and just all of a sudden emerged as a promising singer/songwriter whose romantic melodies, poetic lyrics and sensual alt voice worked pleasantly on one's mind. The impact of the album was for an important part owed to Peter Van Hooke and Rod Argent, a producers duo from the new age category, who provided a perfect instrumental implementation, as a result of which the whole picture was better than the individual parts.

Despite a busy tour schedule the team soon turned up with a successor, 'The Sweet Keeper', which severely suffered from mannerism which, combined with the mediocre material, came home to roost. On 'Everybody's Angel' the team has very much tried not to do that again, apparently at the instigation of Tikaram herself, judging from the fact that she is credited as primary producer. The whole picture sounds quite extraverted and that's why she sometimes, as a result of her limited reach and small volume, gets in trouble. She has also, where the arrangements are concerned, let herself get inspired by the more recent work of her big idol Van Morrison in such a manner, that the result in say in practically half of the fourteen compositions sounds rather epigonistic. But it's those songs which make 'Everybody's Angel', in the final analysis, a very nice album, even though the music doesn't stick in your mind. By the way, Tikaram looks very charming with her new haircut.