It's taken six albums for Hollywood-based Kim Carnes to find her niche as the female Rod Stewart. The breakthrough song on Mistaken Identity is Carnes' hit version of Jackie De Shannon and Donna Weiss' "Bette Davis Eyes," an ode to a temptress who, according to the witty lyric, is as "pure as New York snow." In her most sultry voice, Carnes plays the role of the siren to the hilt, coyly milking the lines for titillating doubleentendres, while Bill Cuomo's synthesized arrangement, spurred by whiplash sound effects, provides an appropriate mood of brittle sleaze. This Number One smash crystallizes a new Los Angeles mainstream sound that might best be described as New Wave MOR.

"Bette Davis Eyes" establishes a tone that the rest of the record sustains, as Carnes portrays a sophisticate with a penetrable facade. In "Break the Rules Tonite (Out of School)," the LP's hardest rocker (which Carnes wrote with husband Dave Ellingson and Wendy Waldman), the singer comes out swinging like Rod Stewart at his most potent and takes the round. Kim Carnes used to exploit her rusty soprano for weepy pathos, but her suds were too synthetic to wash. Her new brassiness is far more convincing. (RS 347)

STEPHEN HOLDEN