To Whom It May Concern
Blessed--or is it cursed?--with a visage that's a distinctly haunting echo of herfather's, Lisa Marie Presley has either spent most of her adult life assiduously avoiding a music career or engaged in Machiavellian schemes to secure one, depending on your spin source. But here it is, informed by no small amount of tabloid-ready living (three failed marriages, including two bizarre years the King's daughter spent playing Princess of Pop toMichael Jackson) and a slate of modern record-biz heavy hitters. The album's first single, "Lights Out," is a countryfied pop collaboration with Glen Ballard in which the singer's tough, bittersweet lyrics obliquely confront the daunting legacy of her father and the Memphis where her "family's buried and gone." Her husky alto isn't the only thing that recalls Sheryl Crow; the bristling textures of Andy Slater (Wallflowers) and Eric Rosse (Tori Amos) are a veritable textbook of modern-rock techniques, wed to some smart cover choices that bolster her music's moody, introspective bent. But that gloss sometimes makes Presley seem like a guest artist on her own album, making one curious to hear her in the setting where her father was so often riveting: Alone in the spotlight. They don't call it the gene pool lottery for nothing.–Jerry McCulley