The perfect rock song -- the kind that demands to be turned up loud while driving fast with the windows down -- is a tricky beast. While certain formulas work beautifully (verse/chorus/verse, loud/soft, scream/whisper), there's a real risk of sounding exactly the same as every other consummate rocker tune.
"Your Little Secret" finds Melissa Etheridge teetering on the precipice of predictability: on one hand, she's an original voice with buckets of talent, on the other, she tends to sound quite a bit like Tina Turner here, Bonnie Raitt there, with a smidgen of Bruce Springsteen thrown in for good measure. Without the influences that she draws from, it's sometimes unclear what, exactly, Etheridge herself brings to the party.
Still, "Your Little Secret" finds Melissa Etheridge handily retaining her crown as reigning MOR rocker chick. It's an album that won't disappoint the legions of fans who catapulted 1993's "Yes I Am" into the rarified realm of records selling more than 5 million nationally. While the 10 songs here find Etheridge breaking little new ground, nonetheless they're most likely bound for the top of the charts.
Etheridge has a real knack for songwriting; at her best, she turns the requisite hook-heavy anthems and plaintive ballads into something greater, delivering detail-laden lyrics with utter conviction. The title track is a natural for radio, with the singer throatily turning down a tryst with genuine reluctance ("I could I won't/ I can't I don't/ You make it hard ... I will not lie"). And the spirited "I Really Like You" is a raucous celebration of seduction, with Etheridge promising the object of her affection everything from mangos ("your favorite fruit") to more intimate gestures ("I'll shave everything baby ... find that song by Perry Como you like to sing").
The problem is, even though Etheridge clearly enjoys belting her heart out and plays guitar as adeptly as any of her male counterparts, there's little sense that she's stretching herself. The exception is in her words; many of which obliquely deal with the quandaries of being lesbian in a straight culture. "Nowhere to Go" is a musing look back at a mid-western town where "they never woke up/ from the American dream ... Oh you and I dancing slow/ and we got nowhere to go."
It's moments like that when Etheridge reaches beyond the predictable and reveals a glimpse of the heights she's capable of. If she'll get up off her laurels and dig a little deeper, she's liable to add something truly innovative to the rock lexicon next time out.
By Julene Snyder