Bette Midler

It took Bette Midler two and a half years to make her third album. But all Songs for the New
Depression does is once again raise the question of how this gifted stage personality can
capture on a record the ebullience, spontaneity and imagination of her performances.
Clearly, as her selection of good, recent songs by Bob Dylan. Tom Waits, Nick Holmes and
Phoebe Snow indicates, Midler wishes to be regarded as a versatile recording ar... More >

It's going too far to claim that she's taken on a corporate personality--a very unusual individual does definitely peek out through the curtain of groupthink that hides these songs from the singer and from us. But that individual seems to have taken on so many advisers because she's afraid of herself, and such fear is not attractive in an artist of Bette Midler's power. No matter what your voice teachers tell you, wackiness is not something to modulate. (Grade: C+)