Nice Index Of Arista Recordings
4
By a song 4u
During 1997 Arista pulled all the stops on it's top drawer artists and either re-issued key albums or assembled single-disc anthologies like this one and mastered it utilizing the latest in 24-bit oversampling. Unfortunately the results vary in quality, some nice and loud and others, like this one, a bit muted. The individual album remasters of Melissa's Arista body of work recently released and available here on iTunes sound far better. She did a one-off recording after her Arista tenure for Casablanca for a soundtrack appearance titled "Thief Of Hearts" and a one off album for MCA titled "Mathematics" which, like the Casablanca recording, remain vaulted. Melissa cut her chops as a singer-songwriter and most recordings arranged, produced, and released by such artists have a tendency, at least early in their career, to sound like well produced acoustic demos. In Melissa's case her work leans toward a gospel slant with an r&b backbeat and as she developed her sound became very commercial, almost New Wave. Vocally this girl can sing the phone book and I absolutely love every thing she's done, though I prefer her big ballads like "Midnight Blue" and "Don't Cry Out Loud." I remember her "Fire In The Morning" and she had a follow-up in the 80's called "Pretty Girls" which although a hit didn't make this collection. I personally think Melissa and her album cuts are worth seeking out but if just the highlights is all that's desired this collection's fine, just turn up the volume.
