Open Road
[George] Michael's footprints are all over Barlow'sOpen Road. Barlow, too, sings with slightly over-the-top ardor and gives in to a weakness for silly love songs. How else to explain his sticky-sweet cover of "So Help Me Girl," a 1995 country hit for Joe Diffie? Barlow is better off going a livelier route, caressing "My Commitment" with a sensual falsetto, turning up the funk with surprising confidence on "Lay Down for Love" and actually managing to utter the phrase "drowning in my autocratic ways" without sounding like a psychobabbling nut.   --People