Album Review #99: You Hold The Key (Beth Nielsen Chapman)

BETH NIELSEN CHAPMAN
YOU HOLD THE KEY
1993-REPRISE
Produced By FRANK FILIPETTI

1. I Don't Know
2. You Hold The Key
3. Dance With Me Slow
4. Say It To Me Now
5. When I Feel This Way
6. Rage On Rage
7. Only So Many Tears
8. In The Time It Takes
9. You Say You Will
10. The Moment You Were Mine
11. Faithful Heart
12. Dancer To The Drum

Beth Nielsen Chapman is known primarily for two things. She replaced Tommy Shaw in the band Harmony when Shaw left to join Styx. And her songs are much better, and have been more successful, in the hands of other artists. Having written many hits for mostly country artists, Chapman's own recordings are straight Adult Contemporary...in other words, pretty boring. You Hold The Key is her second album, and it's about as inoffensive, slick and forgettable as AC gets. She has a nice voice, but not a spectacular one. The songs are weighed down with AC keyboards, and there are too many ballads. "You Say You Will" is the highlight, a song where she drops the schmooze and sounds a lot like Bonnie Raitt. The best known song from this is "In The Time It Takes"...a duet with Paul Carrack.

Better left alone. Unless you're trying to read yourself to sleep with background noise.

This is album #99 in an ongoing series.