The first of two week long retrospecticuses (or however you spell the plural of a made up one) begins with a reverse look at the most recent career choices made by my favourite singer Deborah Gibson. I've been meaning to do this for a while, but was spurred on when a new song (though kinda old – more on that in a minute) Rich Girl was put onto Deb's myspace site. It's been 3 years since her last studio album was released, but in that time Deborah has been as productive as ever, and produced some great pop songs that deserve to be collected up and acknowledged for the talent they show. The new music started flowing in December 2004, when Deborah released the sublime festive ballad Christmas Without You as part of a compilation cd. Quite rightly, as with all Deb's ballads it is heavy on melody and intrinsically beautiful in it's use of piano and sweet vocal. It was a perfect lead in to 2005, which was a busy year for fans. Not only were there two cds rounding up unreleased demos (Memory Lane 1&2 featuring some classic tunes such as Cinderella theme 'Some People' and a number of songs deemed not good enough by Atlantic for the Body Mind Soul album in 1993 that far outshine much of the material eventually put on it…), there was a fan club day in Florida which I attended and was rather brillo, the naked but tasteful Playboy spread and of course the accompanying single Naked. This track was a great slice of guitar spangled pop that would have easily held it's own upside songs that Daniel Powter and Kelly Clarkson were releasing at the time. It was at this time that Rich Girl (a cover of the Hall & Oates song way before Nelly Furtado got the idea) was touted as a second single and prelude to an album, but sadly that has yet to materialise. 2006 saw Deborah back on tv lasting a few episodes into Skating On Ice and touring with the O'Neill Brothers, with whom she released a single Someone You Love – another piano and strings ballad that had some elegant and uplifting lyrics and a timeless chorus. Just beautiful. Sadly, her second collaboration of the year – with Jordan Knight on Say Goodbye – wasn't her best moment, though did give her a minor AC smash, for which we should be grateful. And the start of 2007 sees rumours of an album once more as 3 new songs have been released to fans – Sounds Like Love is a mid tempo ballad a la Irreplaceable or We Belong Together and is the most contemporary thing Deb has done in a while. Famous tries hard to be cutting edge and contemporary but sadly isn't – though it's hard to dislike a song that evokes so many memories of fab songs from the early 90s. And Rich Girl leaked yesterday – I seem to remember the version played at the fan day being slightly rockier and dancier, though I am completely enjoying the pure pop interpretation of this version. Just lovely. Coming tomorrow ~ Coloured Lights…
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LINK: The official Deborah Gibson myspace site
