Natalie Cole's fourth album with songwriters/producers Chuck Jackson and Marvin Yancy is a professional piece of work with little emotional spark. Jackson's and Yancy's material reworks Sixties soul formulas in arrangements as mediocre as they are predictable. Cole's own songwriting is also emphasized here: she wrote two songs and cowrote two others. "Lovers" is a modern swing ballad, and "La Costa," a wispy jazz samba. Glamorous but vapid, they show Cole drawn to the type of vehicle associated with frosty nightclub stylists like Nancy Wilson. Cole is as technically at ease in this genre as she is in soul. What's maddening is her complacency. She's not only content to parrot Aretha Franklin and Nancy Wilson, her two most disparate influences, she echoes them at their most careless.

The one song that climbs out of the rut is Cole's "Annie Mae," a Curtis Mayfield-style ballad about a woman who's always lost in life. It's not a great song, but it has heart, and Cole delivers it convincingly enough to make one wonder if on the rest of the album she just wasn't trying. Cole is too smart and talented to abandon herself to this sort of hackwork. Dozens of first-rate songs are available for her to revive and make her own. She owes it to her talent to explore the literature, discover the songs that ring true, and record them with producers who will refuse to settle for less. (RS 257)

STEPHEN HOLDEN