★★★★★
For a flukey moment there she was Bette Midler turning into Stevie Wonder, but that was long before her discovery by the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences. Now she's Shirley Bassey turning into Debby Boone.
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-17
★★★★★
Manchester is very sexy in a barely disciplined, almost blowzy way--maybe a touch overexpressive, a little too liberal with her emotions. "I Got Eyes" is nice juicy fuck music and "Stevie's Wonder" the ultimate fan letter from someone who's found a new model of overexpressiveness. Both transcend the rest of the album, which in turn transcends the popped seams and middling Midlerizations of her first two LPs.
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10
★★★★★
The lyric zaniness that justified her defensive overstatement and good cheer last time proves a flimsy virtue, collapsing beneath the weight of her own success. Maybe she only does want to make us happy, but that should make us sad.
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10
★★★★★
Melissa Manchester continues to make music that could have come out any time in the past two decades. Too often, the tunes on If My Heart Had Wings sound like bland anthems in search of a maudlin movie score, although the approach works nicely on a cover of the Doobie Brothers' ''Here to ) Love You.'' C+
- ew.com
2009-06-12
★★★★★
Melissa Manchester's first album of new material in a decade was filled with big, dramatic ballads and widescreen production values. That was closer to what seemed a comfortable style for the singer than the dance-pop she had affected in the mid-1980s, but still did not return her to the creative promise she had shown in the mid-1970s.
- music.aol.com
2008-08-27
★★★★★
Hearing Manchester squander her considerable vocal talents on faceless slabs of balladry like "Without You" is painful indeed. But this was clearly the ethos behind For the Working Girl -- production-line, off-the-peg songwriting that deserved only the most perfunctory reading, pointlessly invested with all manner of vocal histrionics...
- music.aol.com
2008-08-27
★★★★★
Following the success of Melissa, and particularly its Top Ten single "Midnite Blue," Melissa Manchester reassembled the same team and attempted to replicate the formula. Primarily, that meant more intimate, lushly produced ballads with lyrics by Carole Bayer Sager, and these included "Better Days," essentially a "Midnite Blue" sequel that told what happened the morning after, and "Just You and I," a song with more than a whiff of "Bridge Over Troubled Water...
- music.aol.com
2008-08-27
★★★★★
On her second album, Melissa Manchester remained largely under the influence of some immediate predecessors, though she was beginning to show evidence of an original talent. The impact of Laura Nyro still could be heard on songs like the title track and "O Heaven (How You've Changed to Me)," with their vibrant gospel tone...
- music.aol.com
2008-08-27