I Was So Excited To Get A Nina Gordon C.D., But After Bleeding Heart Graffiti, I'm Not.

The Good: Moments of voice, One or two of the lyrics
The Bad: Inane pop sound, A lot of repetition and dull lyrics, Overproduced vocals.
The Basics: Repetitive and droll, Bleeding Heart Graffiti disappoints a listener who loves female pop-rock artists and was looking forward to getting into Nina Gordon!


Some years back, I was listening to the radio program "New Hits Now" and I was blown away by a song they played. I was absolutely convinced it would be a huge hit and it would make Nina Gordon a household name. The song was "Tonight And The Rest Of My Life" (reviewed here!) and it was unlike anything else that was on the radio at the time and it charted, but not high enough for Gordon to even be legitimately considered a one-hit wonder. As luck would have it, my brother had just won the single from a radio station days before and when I put two and two together, I gladly accepted his offer for it. So, I've spent years listening to a crappy single of "Tonight And The Rest Of My Life," the single. And as I've searched for new artists to enjoy, it wasn't until this week that I actually found a Nina Gordon c.d.

So, when I picked up Bleeding Heart Graffiti, I was excited. I did not know a single song on the album (this is not the album "Tonight And The Rest Of My Life" is on) and I've been looking for new female artists who I might find engaging. This album did not do that. After five listens, I was crushed because the album was nowhere near as good as I hoped it might be. Instead, this was mediocre pop-rock and much of it was just inane pop that was so common as to be disturbing. In fact, it was only after the eighth listen to Bleeding Heart Graffiti that I found enough merit in it to knock it up to two-stars. I suppose it wore me down.

With fourteen tracks, coming in at 47:35, Bleeding Heart Graffiti is a work that seems to be a combination of the vision of Nina Gordon and Warner Bros. Records. Gordon wrote or co-wrote all of the songs on the album. As well, she provides all of the lead vocals. However, there her involvement seems to end; Nina Gordon is not credited with playing any instruments on Bleeding Heart Graffiti and she has no production credit on the album. The result is a musical endeavor that does not seem to be all Nina Gordon's musical vision. Or if it is, that vision is nowhere near as impressive as I once hoped it would be.

Bleeding Heart Graffiti is a boring album musically. Indeed, if one had to define "piano-driven pop music," "Kiss Me 'Til It Bleeds" would be the perfect song for that. That "Turn On Your Radio" sounds so much like it is disturbing. Moreover, "Suffragette" sounds like it could have been made by Huey Lewis and the News and while I like them, it's not a sound that fits the lyrics well. As well, the album opens weakly on the title track which is a short song that leads into "Christmas Lights" which is a pretty saccharine pop song.

As well, most of the tracks follow the same basic format. This leads to a somewhat homogenous sound throughout the album, despite the use of guitars and pianos alternately. This homogenous quality comes from the percussion. The drums come in with such calculated precision in each and every song that it's hard to believe they weren't produced in. Songs like "Don't Let Me Down" sound like a boring reincarnation of the works of Aimee Mann. And largely, the instrumentals are so overproduced that track to track is sounds more like Gordon is accompanied by a computer than actual instruments ever played by humans.

Lyrically, the album is fairly problematic as well. Nina Gordon seems especially plagued by some of the most predictable rhymes I've yet heard. She strings together lines with meaning, but so many of them have a singsong quality to the rhyme scheme that it quickly becomes tiresome and predictable to listen to. There are only so many times one can hear "I'm stupid, a sucker, he's a loaded gun / A lover, a leaver, just a hit and run / When our worlds collide breathe deep and hold on tight / Cause he's so rock and roll, I'm a tortured soul with him in my bones / And he leaves me shattered like a rolling stone / I'm gonna hang myself on someone else, use just enough rope / I know he's bad news but I can't say no / If bitter is sweet then he's just what I need / So kiss me 'till it bleeds" ("Kiss Me 'Til It Bleeds") before it loses all impact and sounds more like a tween's concept of love and relationships.

Most of Nina Gordon's songs on Bleeding Heart Graffiti are about relationships and the angst that comes with them. The songs contain familiar and obvious concepts like the desire to return to innocence for a lover ("Pure") and the feeling of loss at the end of a relationship ("When You Don't Want Me Anymore"). On "Watercolors," she lays out the concept of "I'm happiest when I'm blue / Keep me bleeding like watercolors" rather quickly and then repeats it a lot. The song uses a number of the most obvious rhymes in pop rock (fool/school, etc.) and then repeats them a lot.

In fact, one of the real death knells of the album is just how repetitive the album is. Gordon seems to have a basic idea for each song and she makes her points real quick, then pretty much collapses with them as she struggles to fill out the rest of the song. The result is virtually every song on the album repeats itself a lot. Even the best track, "Turn On Your Radio" suffers from this. Gordon has a pretty great and direct concept, but after the first refrain, the song stumbles and she fills with more awkward bridges like "Don't know where you are tonight / If there is someone sleeping by your side / But I'm gonna write it with my airplane in your sky / And you're gonna read it on a billboard when you're driving by" before returning to the solid, if repetitive, refrain of "Turn on your radio and listen to these words as I repeat them / You have lost me, yeah, you have lost me" ("Turn On Your Radio"). The result is ultimately the album becomes agonizing to listen to.

The repetitive quality is accented by vocals that are track to track unwavering in their style. Gordon has a decent enough voice, she seems most comfortable in the alto range and she articulates well, but all of the songs have the same earnest, straightforward vocals that stick very safely in that range. As a result, vocally the album is ridiculously stagnant. As well, her vocals are enhanced on most every track by production elements that give the album a rather generic, homogenous sound that is troubling to those of us who listen to a lot of music.

Ultimately, it's hard to muster up more about "Bleeding Heart Graffiti;" the album is boring and what talent Nina Gordon has seems to be shot quickly on this album. The repetitive nature of the vocals, lyrics and instrumentals make it a pretty terrible album as far as replayability goes. Fortunately, I'm now done with it and may move on.

The best track is "Turn On Your Radio," the weak track among a collection of pretty lousy other songs is "Bones And A Name."

For other pop-rock albums by female artists, please check out my reviews of:
A Fine Frenzy - One Cell In The Sea
Dido - No Angel
Fergie - The Dutchess

3/10

For other music reviews, please visit my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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More Average Than Insipid, Nina Gordon's Tonight And The Rest Of My Life Isn't Worth It!

The Good: Moments of lyrics, voice, Title track
The Bad: Predictable rhyme schemes, Overproduced vocals and instrumentals.
The Basics: With its generic pop-rock sound and annoyingly sing-song lyrics, Tonight And The Rest Of My Life is a complete flop for Nina Gordon.


When I first heard the single “Tonight And The Rest Of My Life” by Nina Gordon, back in 2000, I was convinced that Nina Gordon would be huge. I was sure she would ride the Blonde Revolution out as one of the greats of that young hot thing pop movement. The single was musically rich, vocally average and lyrically romantic in the way that appeared to have everything that young people who buy c.d.s seem to look for. I could never understand how it was Gordon hadn't smashed onto the music scene and impressed the world. Then I heard her album Bleeding-Heart Graffiti and I understood. Now, having heard the album Tonight And The Rest Of My Life, I am forced to assume that even Americans couldn't muster up the enthusiasm for the sugary pop and often melodramatic lyrics that Nina Gordon presented on the album.

Nina Gordon's first single from Tonight And The Rest Of My Life sounded unlike anything else on the radio at the time - and not quite like anything else on the album. Unfortunately, the album is defined by melodramatic pop ballads ("2003," "The End Of The World") and rock anthems that sound like Angry Chick Standard ("Badway," "Number One Camera"). The result is an album that it is exceptionally easy to tire of easily and has an overall adolescent sound and feel to it.

With thirteen tracks, clocking in at 50:39, Tonight And The Rest Of My Life is a combination of the musical vision of Nina Gordon and producer Bob Rock. Gordon wrote all of the songs, save "The End Of The World." Nina Gordon provides the lead vocals for each song, but it is unclear whether or not she even played her trademark guitar on the album. As well, she does not get so much as a production credit; Bob Rock is the exclusive producer and there is the question, then, of how much of the sound and feel of the album is truly Nina Gordon's.

What initially interested me in Nina Gordon was the title single of the album; it has an orchestral rock feel and anthemic scope to it with Gordon presenting universal lyrics and a strong love theme. Over the course of the album, there are a few such thematic songs, like "Horses In The City" which expresses alienation and awkwardness remarkably well, "Hold On To Me" which is articulate (in a singsongy way) about loyalty in love, and a bevy of breakup songs ("New Year's Eve," "Fade To Black"). Thematically, Gordon seems to have a lot to say and Tonight And The Rest Of My Life offers a diverse range of songs . . . within a rather narrow selection of standard pop-rock themes. In other words, there is nothing truly audacious here. It's all love and loss of love and Gordon does not have a lot going that is either unique or uniquely stated.

Take, for example, "New Year's Eve," a song about a musical protagonist's antipathy toward celebrating the new year because of the love of her life being indifferent to her on New Year's after their breakup. What seems like it ought to be audacious, clever and unique is absolutely crippled by inane rhymes throughout the stanzas and in the refrain. Indeed, it is hard to take Gordon's message seriously when she sings lines like "Normally I'd be knee-deep in champagne / I'd kick my heels up until neighbors complain / It's a glamorous evening for most / Normally I'd be upstaging the host / But not this year because I'm here / The party's all around me / You're there / Indifference has found me / I know I should have dressed up but I just can't make believe / Now I'm here and you're there / So who cares what I wear / On new year's eve" ("New Year's Eve"). Unfortunately, this is more typical for the album than the exception to the rule.

It is not, however, all bad. Gordon's creativity does have the ability to win out. So on "2003" she presents a pop-rock story song that is either a time travel love song or a pledge song. Indeed, Gordon when Gordon sings "I want to meet in 2003 / I want to see what the future can bring to me / And when I do I'll meet you here my darling / And when I'm free I'll be waiting where I said I would be / My love will you wait for me" ("2003") the listener actually feels like they are hearing something they haven't heard before. This is almost the musical equivalent to "The Lake House" and Gordon pulls the song off fairly well.

But what Nina Gordon seems to lack - largely - is a sense of musical and emotional maturity on Tonight And The Rest Of My Life. Everything is extreme and melodramatic in the way she expresses her emotions, there is no temperance or reason, it is all huge mood swings. So, for example, on virtually every track Gordon's musical protagonists are treated like they are the center of all things, their own world as well as the world of all of the bystanders around them. The extremeness of this is evident on songs like "Hate Your Way" with its ridiculous lyrics like "I don't care / They can cut me down / 'Til I'm the talk of the town / I'm a fool for you / Had to sell my soul / But you were so rock and roll / I'm a fool for you" that leave the listener wondering "who does this person think she is?!" as opposed to empathizing with her.

Nina Gordon's Tonight And The Rest Of My Life is also plagued by vastly overproduced lyrics. In all honesty, I cannot tell from the music on this album whether or not Nina Gordon is a good singer or not. She appears to have an alto voice that tends to tread to the lower ranges of that register, but all of the vocals are so cleaned up and computer enhanced in the quality of their sound that it is impossible to tell what is real and what is Gordon's actual voice. She does manage to eke into the soprano range on the title track and "Horses In The City," but the rest of the album tends to be so bland and without the flaws of realism that vocally it is a dull album.

Similarly, musically the album takes a quick turn from original and interesting to the fast train to dullsville. The songs initially defy the conventions of being either guitar or keyboard (piano) driven tracks by being both. The songs tend to include obvious and possibly programmed percussion, electric guitars and keyboards and/or pianos. But all of the songs use the same combinations for a series of songs that have the exact same type of richness to them. Every song on the album sounds like it could be played during the closing credits to a teen-oriented film.

The result is a remarkably average pop-rock album with so little to recommend it that it is, in fact, easy to not recommend it. Objectively, it is the embodiment of average and those who miss the 1980s sound and feel to pop-rock music might enjoy this for the nostalgia value (and yes, I am aware that Nina Gordon is about fifteen years too late for that sound with this album), but for the rest of us, those looking for something new, we are likely to look past this album and Nina Gordon to something else.

The best track is "Tonight And The Rest Of My Life," the weak link is the utterly unmemorable "Got Me Down."

For other, intriguing, solo female artists, please visit my reviews of:
Bomb In A Birdcage - A Fine Frenzy
Human Again - Ingrid Michaelson
Icon - Imogen Heap

4.5/10

For other music reviews, please check out my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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