Rating: NNN
Multi-talented Frenchwoman Amanda Lear returns to dance music on her 15th studio album, translating her apparent aversion to her formative years as a disco diva into 10 tracks of pumping Euro-dance.
The best thing about Lear – a TV personality, painter, former model and Dali muse – is her throaty, feline sing-talky delivery, which sounds as weirdly ominous as it did when she offered up a saucy take on the alphabet in 1977.
That vocal style is captured best on Icon, a smoky, top-of-the-piano number that offers a brief reprieve from the muscular club beats and shrieking guitar solos. If a cigarette could sing, it might sound like Amanda Lear.
It’s also the kind of malleable voice that – like Cassie’s or Britney’s – can be a pop producer’s dream. For the most part, the production team stays out of her way, providing an amped-up, if unadventurous, dance sound to showcase her hilariously blunt rhymes and hypnotic, guttural purring.
Top track: Money Money