Growing Pains [Audio CD] Billie Myers

Product Description This Coventry-born, London inhabitant writes poetry, drawing her music from her prose. Among her co-writing partners are Desmond Child (also her album's producer) and Eric Bazilian (formerly of the Hooters, he co-wrote Joan Osbourne's hit "One of Us"). The first single, "Kiss the Rain," leads an intensive promotion for the artist (now in full swing at CHR, modern AC and rock formats) that includes press opportunities and AAA radio. Husky-voiced Billie Myers was discovered in a London club by a producer who saw her dancing and suggested that if she could sing as well as she moved her hips, she should give him a call. The seemingly tacky pickup line was actually a legitimate business proposition, and three years later Myers has a major-label debut to show for it. Produced by Desmond Child (not the initial dance-club Casanova, in case you were wondering), Growing Pains is a standard-issue rock record, clinging to every plodding 1980s aesthetic in the book. Smoldering guitar chords, synthetically programmed drum rhythms, and big splashy choruses earmark the disc, while Myers does her best to sound like a predictable cross between Alanis Morissette and Joan Armatrading. On "A Few Words Too Many", she conjures the indistinct balladry of John Waite, while on "Tell Me" she gets "exotic", thanks to the accompaniment of a flute and sitar. Sgt. Pepper's, this ain't. The funk-lite of "The Shark and the Mermaid" is slightly less annoying, but it's too little, too late in an album that willingly redefines the standards of blandness. --Aidin Vaziri