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album review
There is nothing radical about the dozen songs on Saturday Morning Sweet Shoppe. Nothing, that is, unless you consider plump, delicious, melodically creamy pop pastries -- of a variety that have managed to break through to mainstream radio only occasionally in the decades since Don Kirshner's bubblegum factory began to crumble -- radical. By that criterion, Andrea Perry's debut album is radical indeed -- and radically fantastic. In fact, it is on the order of, and quality-wise on a par with, the early-'70s one-man-band efforts by Paul McCartney and, especially, Emitt Rhodes. The comparison may sound like hyperbole, but once these irresistibly animated tunes -- buoyant, euphonious, cherubic, ridiculously hummable -- lay their pillowy kisses on you, they may end up playing in the background of all your pleasantest dreams. Perry's delivery -- topped off with one of those titillating cotton-candy voices -- is so shy and unassuming that the music at first seems much simpler than it really is. But as the cupcake-sized melodies and smiling ba-ba-bop harmonies cumulate, it sneaks up on you and gradually begins to alter the scenery, as if you were an Alice hurtling softly into a musical Wonderland. Mid-period Beatles unmistakably reign supreme here, especially evident on "I Don't Need This," which has some of the odd, kaleidoscopic turns of Magical Mystery Tour, on the haunted "Wilderness" (uncharacteristically recalling Lennon more than McCartney), and in the odd flourish (the echo-laden piano of "I Rued the Day," for instance). Perry, however, proved equally adept at absorbing other inspirations: At times ("Simple," the jolly "To Have a Heart") Saturday Morning Sweet Shoppe takes its cues from the rousing choruses and jaunty melodic lines of classic Broadway, while "Making Her Up" and "If I Lose You" have the moonlit, magical, and quiescent qualities of midnight childhood hymns. Partake, confidently, in great gulps. ~ Stanton Swihart, All Music Guide
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