Dolly Birds, Greatest Hits Volume 2, review
JOAN JETT Bad Reputation (Epic)
OLIVIA NEWTON JOHN Olivia’s Greatest Hits (EMI)
LINDA RONSTADT Get Closer (Asylum)
Let me hear….
WOMEN IN rock-continued. A long time ago, when pop music was still toddling, girl singers were supposed to be uncomplicated fish: bouffant-topped dollies, shielded and sheltered at one moment and pushed onto a glaring ledge over idolatry the next. Virginal cuties like Helen Shapiro, Susan Maugham and Brenda Lee were what you aspired to be if you were a girl, and the only alternative was to hide behind a wooden box and a jumper and pretend you were Joan Baez.
If we map out a course to enlightenment - Franklin, Springfield, Joplin, Quatro, Jackson, Harry, Bush - then we arrive at the present and find well, here are the dollies all over again. Look at these three: older, richer, harder but dollies. Aren’t they?
There are six worthwhile things on “Olivia’s Greatest Hits”, which means there’s fourteen which don’t make it. In “Physical” (tied up), “Tied Up” (physical), “Heart Attack” (graphic), “Make A Move On Me” (merciless) and “Magic” (breathless) the logistics of wanting are fragmented and rebuilt at a heady remove from the customary white disco tease - brilliant productions and tempting performances that demand a fuller thesis than this. The other one is “You’re The One That I Want”, the faked masterpiece which Annette and Fabian never made. As this undeniable dolly pirouettes she knows she has it all I love her.
By Richard Cook