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Title: Great on Stage, But in the Studio?
Review: Hearing just a few bars of the title track, "The Book of Love," by accident on Pandora, I was so struck that I ordered the CD right away.It was just a flash in the pan. I'm taken aback that Ms. Bentyne, a perenially exciting performer on Heart's Desire, Foreign Affair, Spies in the Night, et al., seems so uninspired on this solo disc. She brings nothing new to these standards. Nor is her concept, presenting the stages of a love affair as a song cycle, new. It was done far more convincingly by Streisand two decades earlier in Till I Loved You.Even the haunting title track turned out to be less than meets the ear. Its lyrics are not only inane -- Cole Porter, who is represented on this CD, would chortle -- they don't even sync with the melody. Its arrangers have plagiarized note-for-note the opening to the Singers Unlimited version of When I Fall in Love.
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