★★★★★
On Midnight Lounge, Jody Watley sings about "happier days for you and I" over jazzy beats, telling us that she's still "thinking about the good times." Revisiting good times might have helped Watley. From 1977 to 1987, her career blossomed as she made the transition from Soul Train dancer to member of manufactured dance-pop sensation Shalamar...
- www.blender.com
2010-08-22
★★★★★
An abstraction to begin with and a ripoff to boot, this woman suits her remix compilation. But it's still an abstraction. And a ripoff.
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10
★★★★★
Having cornered a new-artist Grammy by narrowcasting her lust for lust, the young black-pop veteran comes up against the perils of upward mobility abuse--once you get hooked, you'll go to any length to keep rising to the top. Yet whatever she's like in "real" life, Jody's more credible servicing pop normals than disco nightcrawlers--demanding "Real Love," hanging onto her "L-O-V-E-R," dissing false "Friends" with a name rapper, etc...
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10
★★★★★
Though Bernard Edwards has his name on three cuts out of nine, including the definitively cock-crazy "Love Injection," you know why former Prince lackey Andre Cymone wanted sole production credit. This is his revenge--a made-to-order dance-rock sex object with better credentials than Sheila E. herself. I have nothing against women pretending they want to go to bed with me...
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10
★★★★★
By all rights, Watley should have
become the next Diana Ross: She's beautiful, versatile, and
though her pretty voice is thin, it's silky smooth. All she
needs is a hit, but this album, weighted toward ho-hum ballads,
probably won't produce one (even the sexy ''Off the Hook'' and
''Baby Tonight'' are unlikely to top the charts). Flower doesn't
droop, but it could've been fresher.
- ew.com
2009-06-12
★★★★★
On Affection, a respectable, if clichéd, mix of groove-funk and cool jazz, self-styled diva Jody Watley tries to assert her evolving musical self but unintentionally winds up playing for our compassion, musically and lyrically (there's even a liner-note confession of a secret, unhappy marriage to Andre Cymone!). Madonna lite.
- ew.com
2009-06-12
★★★★★
The tracks on Jody Watley: Greatest Hits won't boggle the mind with their depth, but this compilationreminds us why Watley once seemed poised to be a pop queen."Looking for a New Love" (1987) and "Real Love" (1989) stillbounce, and funky remixes of "Ecstasy" and "Some Kind of Lover"work so well they may make her a dance-hall diva yet.
- ew.com
2009-06-12
★★★★★
After three years as one of the beautiful bodies shaking it onSoul Train and seven belting it out with the disco-funk groupShalamar, Jody Watley decided in 1987 to throw herself the splashiestcoming-out party a girl could want. She did it by releasing JodyWatley, her hit-spawning solo debut...
- ew.com
2009-06-12
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