Album Review: "Get In Touch With Yourself"- Swing Out Sister

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Swing Out Sister is the duo of vocalist Corinne Drewery and keyboardist Andy Connell. They were big in the late '80's and early '90's with songs like "Breakout," and the only hit on this album. They rode the coat tails of such new jazzy bands like Level 42, Breathe, and Marvelous Sauce. I looked forward to this with great anticipation, but then it started:

1. Get in Touch With Yourself
Strings really accent this funky song where a woman just KNOWS she is all a man needs. The saxophone solo is a great idea.

2. Notgonnachange
Disco and classical strings meet in a breakup song where Drewery sings she will not change for love. The great instrumentals help lyrics that you have heard before in better songs.

3. Am I the Same Girl
The only hit off the album, this song about young love is the best here where Drewery's vocals get a workout.

4. Everyday Crime
Cool bass line and more disco as she sings of loving someone from afar.

5. Who Let the Love Out
The title threw me, I thought I saw the word "dogs" instead of "love," but again the lyrics fail an otherwise flawless piece.

6. I Can Hear You But I Can't See You (Instrumental)
The first of two instrumentals has a great piano overlay, with enough ear stuff going on. Vocals come in and "daa-doo" at a perfect time. Really fun to listen to.

7. Understand
A little darker love song suddenly changes in the chorus to sound as familiar as the other work here. Cheesy rhymes do not help.

8. Circulate
Okay song about a cheating love has a terrible title line: "You let your love circulate." All the subtlety of a Kid Rock music video.

9. Love Child
This sounds like a Madonna song, but this is so lyrically challenged. Do you see a pattern developing?

10. Incomplete Without You
The second best song on the album is more jazzy than the others, and with better keyboard work.

11. Don't Say a Word
Completely bland song starts suddenly, then degenerates. "I've heard it all before" is the most truthful line on the album.

12. Everyday Crime (Instrumental)
Completely unnecessary instrumental version of the earlier song feels tacked on, and it is.

I was very disappointed in this album. The music and production was great, but Drewery's vocals sounded restrained, as if she was holding back. The major weakness here is the songwriting. The lyrics are terrible, singing about ideas of love, loss, and everything else everyone else has written about. All in all, Swing Out Sister needs to get in touch with a muse, not themselves. I do not recommend this one.