 Hayley Mills On this 23-minute bundle of misery, Hayley Mills sounds about as comfortable and smooth as a hometown carnival Tilt-a-Whirl, and by the end I felt about as nauseous. With her pitch-free voice drenched in approximately the same level of reverb that graced Lucia Pamela's Into Outer Space, Hayley stumbles her way through a variety of canned ragtime and trying-to-be teen idol bullshit pop. I know what you're thinking: just why in the name of Satan did you buy a Hayley Mills album? I'm still trying to sort that one out myself. Perhaps it was the sneering, insouciant awkwardness of Hayley coping with adolescence on the front cover. Or maybe it was the specious connection to "Saved By The Bell," even though there's no way you'd find me renting Pollyanna. More likely it was the simple self-defeat guaranteed by subjecting myself to it. At any rate, I'm not entirely sure I want to get rid of it. I am deriving a strange sort of pleasure from this CD. It is terrible, but not so much so that it becomes great. I think it may be that the CD makes me feel like I am the last person on earth. A very post-apocalyptic sort of album, though not in a good way. Highlights include the genuinely lovely "Cranberry Bog" and, well, then you have to reduce your definition of "highlights" to pick "Little Boy" (which rips its melody straight out of Dvorak's "Humoresque") and "Ding Ding Ding." Hayley turns in one of the most stilted performances in the history of celebrity albums, but at least she holds herself back in deference to her lack of singing talent. She's no Jeff Conaway, in other words. Still, the album has more flat notes than a bank on Monday morning. (Are you enjoying my "zingers"?) Low points include three songs I don't want to ever hear again: "Jeepers Creepers," "Green And Yellow Basket" (that's "A'Tisket, A'Tasket" by the way), and the ruinous "Sentimental Sunday." These are the first three tracks on the album. Someone must never have told the producers not to start a supposed pop album off with three '20s-flavored "charmers." And while "Johnny Jingo" might seem like a promising title, it is not memorable in any way. I did enjoy the line "I woke up feeling tickle-pink" from "Pollyanna Song," (which for some reason I couldn't help but imagine Nick Drake covering), and the "clever" double-tracking on "Let's Get Together" (from The Parent Trap). Yet it may take years of therapy to explain why I am even devoting this much time to discussing this record. Okay, I admit it: I'm a pedophile. That's better.
Review by Wampsom Thurle |