TRACKS:

1. Out of the Blue
   
2. Staying Together
   
3. Only In My Dreams
   
4. Foolish Beat
   
5. Red Hot
   
6. Wake Up to Love
   
7. Shake Your Love
   
8. Fallen Angel
   
9. Play the Field
   
10. Between the Lines
    

(All songs written by Deborah Gibson and published by Creative Bloc Music Ltd. / Deborah Ann's Music, ASCAP.)

It's nearly nine years since I first heard this album, and I have to say Deborah's work today is far superior to her debut effort. This is still a charming little collection of simple pop songs though, and remains a pleasure to listen to.

The opening track, Out of the Blue, is a simplistic sixteen-year-old's view of her first love: "I need you, I need you / And everyday I love you more and more", but it's this simplicity that makes this such a delightful song. This is followed by Staying Together, a fast-paced track where she asks / tells her 'boy' to stay with her. It's no more complicated than that, but it's a perfect ittle dance number.

The best fast song is track 3: Only In My Dreams, a song which I still hold in high regard. Listening now, the most striking thing about this song is her voice. While powerful, yet vulnerable - perfect for this song - compare her vocals here with those on, say, For Better Or Worse on her current album, and feel the maturity. Along with Between the Lines, this is her finest vocal performance on this album.

Foolish Beat is a song most people will remember, a haunting ballad of helplessness, the like of which Deborah has written and recorded again and again throughout her career - listen to Can't Do It Alone, Goodbye, and Try.

Three songs of a similar nature follow back to back: Red Hot, a simple singalong song with a smashing, if slightly cliche'd chorus; Wake Up to Love and Shake Your Love, two simple 'I love you' type songs.

Fallen Angel and Play the Field are two very un-Debbie songs lyrically: both songs' lyrics attempt to betray the clean naivite shown by the other eight songs on this album. The former has Deborah suggesting that she's the title character since "I looked in your eyes / That's when I left the skies". The latter appears to be a total renouncement of Out of the Blue and Between the Lines, in that she suggests to a girlfriend not to "just settle down / ... play the field / ... see what you can find", in other words don't take love at first sight, despite how attractive that may be. She is not telling us that she's a 'bad girl' in Fallen Angel, nor is she telling her friend to be in Play the Field, but she is still rising above her youth in these songs; youth which she would celebrate on her next album, Electric Youth.

The beautiful ballad Between the Lines is a fine closer to this wonderful album. Another naive song about young love, it is all the sweeter for this. Her voice is superb on this track, and I love the big note at the end.

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The cover of the album features her in a style that she would later exorcise on the cover of her fifth, and finest, album Think With Your Heart. On the front she is sitting with her left knee raised, complete with a face painted on to it, and a cuddly toy on her right side. This pose is obviously to show her youth. She has shoulder-length blonde hair, fairly large earrings, a jeans and a white top with black horizontal stripes. The back cover of Think With Your Heart features her sitting with right knee raised, and again wearing jeans and a white top with black horizontal stripes. Her hair is blonder and longer now, straighter than before, and she is still smiling. The big earrings are gone now, perhaps replaced with something more mature, and there is no cuddly toy. Her jeans are not ripped, she is a grown woman now.