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Carole King
Love Makes the World
(Rockingale)
First Appeared in The Music Box, September 2007, Volume 14, #9
Written by John Metzger
The problem with being a pop star is that in order to continue to score hits
— and hence, to stay relevant — it is imperative to adopt and incorporate
current trends into one’s work. When the flavor of the day is something pure —
as it was when Carole King was writing songs alongside Gerry Goffin in the ’60s
or when she unleashed her masterpiece Tapestry in the early ’70s — the
results can be magical and timeless. On the other hand, when the market favors
style over substance — as it has, almost without fail, since the disco era — the
outcome can range from being diminished to being lifeless.
Carole King never really was a pop star, per se. As a member of the Brill
Building syndicate, she surely helped to fuel the careers of many up-and-coming
artists, and when she achieved fame on her own accord as a performer, she simply
was a songwriter who became immensely popular. Why she insists on chasing trends
instead of just being true to herself, is anyone’s guess, but over the course of
the past 30 years, she has tried everything to fit in. More often than not,
however, she also has missed the mark by a mile.
After a seven-year silence, King returned in 2001 with Love Makes the
World. It was yet another album in a long line of attempted comebacks, and
as was the case with its predecessors, King’s approach was suspiciously flawed.
For starters, her decision to entice fans with a series of high-profile
collaborators proves to have been a big mistake. With his muted trumpet
accompaniment, Wynton Marsalis salvages the otherwise tepid arrangement that
adorns I Wasn’t Gonna Fall in Love. Elsewhere, however, contributions
from Steven Tyler, k. d. lang, and Babyface do little to elevate the material.
Worst of all, King and Celine Dion fail to generate any chemistry on The
Reason, an exceedingly dull, over-the-top ballad.
Love Makes the World’s other truly immense problem is the manner in which
it was produced. On song after song, King loses sight of the organic, emotional
honesty of her material, and the synthetic percussion and shimmering backing
vocals that she repeatedly employs dilute her lyrics until they become sappy,
manufactured clichés. Cuts like It Could Have Been Anyone and Safe Again sound too Disney-esque to resonate,
and You Can Do Anything, a track about overcoming her own self-doubts
that might have worked if it had been properly framed, seems destined to score a
bad romantic comedy. Likewise, You Will Find Me There is a bland rewrite
of her classic You’ve Got a Friend.
Nevertheless, there are hints that Love Makes the World had the
potential to be a better outing. Throughout the endeavor, King’s sense of melody
remains intact. By the same token, however, every time she stumbles upon
something that works, she answers it with paint-by-numbers mediocrity. She sucks
the life out of the title track, for example, by following the rhythmic,
R&B-drenched drive of its verses with an overwrought, generic chorus. It’s
telling that Love Makes the World’s only unequivocal success is King’s
reworking of Oh No Not My Baby, a tune she penned with Goffin in the
’60s. Stripped bare to piano and a faint dusting of acoustic bass, the song
finds King recapturing the intimate, sad yearning that made Tapestry such
a masterpiece.
For what it’s worth, Love Makes the World recently was reissued as a
deluxe, two-disc set. The first half of the collection features the original
album, while the latter half contains an enhanced CD that includes two music
videos, a behind-the-scenes featurette, and an interview with King. The new
edition of the endeavor also boasts five bonus tracks, including the updated
version of Where You Lead, I Will Follow that she lent to Gilmore
Girls. Regardless of her generosity, all of the extras largely mirror the
deficiencies of the album itself.  ½
Love Makes the World: Deluxe Edition is available from Amazon.com.
To order, Click Here!
For Canadian orders, please
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For UK orders, please
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Ratings
1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!
Copyright © 2007 The Music Box
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