Jamie Kyle - Back From Hollywood
Jamie Kyle's debut (The Passionate Kind) was released in 1992. It was an album balanced on a knife edge between AOR and New Country. The album has some great songs, but somehow they didn't come together to give a really great album.
A break of almost Boston/Def Leppard proportions lead to the follow up not being released until late 1996. Judging from the updates Peter Sims, of record label Now & Then, was posting, I thought this might be a 1997 release rather than 1996. This was partly due distribution problems and then due to Jamie doing a few last minute alterations to create an album she was happier with.
The period between albums has seen Jamie's songs covered by Faith Hill (Wild One, a Country No 1), Jo Dee Messina and Heart (Stranded). Of course, singer/songwriters sometimes have trouble translating the sucess of their songs into their own singing careers.
Style wise, little has changed from the first album. Maybe it's the move to Now & Then, but this album finds Jamie leaning marginally closer to the rock/AOR end of things. The truth is that it's pretty difficult to determine exactly where AOR ends and New Country beings these days. Whenever you are reviewing an album or artist it's convenient to put them in a pigeonhole as being a particular type of music. With Jamie that's not possible.
I could have done without the reworking of Bed Of Roses from the debut, simply because there isn't a drastic difference.There isn't anything as stark or beautiful as 'No Sad Goodbyes' from the debut, but this is compensated for by the more consistent quality of the songwriting compared to the debut. This makes selecting highlights difficult, but some of my favorities include Everything But Love, Is There Still Time and Back From Hollywood.
Now & Then are to be praised for picking up on this one. To be honest I expected Jamie to be picked up as a New Country artist following the debut and to head off in that direction (Isn't there a feature on CMT called Rebel Country which plays rock/country crossover acts ? Jamie should be a regular on this slot). I'm glad to see she decided to stay with the AOR/New Country mix. This has the potential to be Now & Then's biggest album to date, simply because it should appeal to a wider audience than of their other releases.
Rating : 9
