Here is the sound of good pop going bad.
The Osmonds had already hinted at unforeseen depths when they crowned their most successful year yet with the conceptual
The Plan and, it has to be said, scared off a considerable portion of their fan base in so doing. Undeterred, however, they continued driving into more musically sober pastures with
Love Me for a Reason, an album of considerably more grown-up emotions and thoughts than any they had unleashed in the past. Of course, the title track is a pop classic, and is joined here by a handful of additional performances that manage to convey the intended sense of maturity at the same time as sounding like an awful lot of fun -- "Having a Party," "I Can't Get Next to You," and (bet you never expected to see a title like this on an
Osmonds record) "Ballin' the Jack." But the strange malaise that somehow convinces our pop idols that the road to adulthood is paved with boring ballads is alive and well here as well, and too much of
Love Me for a Reason actually fails to deliver any reasons whatsoever. So we'll stop loving them. ~ Dave Thompson