CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE
JOAN ARMATRADING: "To The Limit" (A&M):: The secret of Armatrading's songs is their plainness, but it's also their drawback. When she hits an image—"I read your letter yesterday/It fell between the covers/And my bare skin"—she lights up a real life.
CHRISTGOU CONSUMER GUIDG
DEPARTMENTS
by Robert Christgau
JOAN ARMATRADING: "To The Limit" (A&M):: The secret of Armatrading's songs is their plainness, but it's also their drawback. When she hits an image—"I read your letter yesterday/It fell between the covers/And my bare skin"—she lights up a real life. More often, though, she just says what she has to say with whatever unprepossessing idiom is at hand, and her melodies are even less inclined to witticism than her words. This style of candor, engaging in theory, escapes tedium in practice by way of Armatrading's bluntly dramatic singing. Rarely have less tuneful songs so impressed themselves on my mind.
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