Amber - Naked (2002)

Slowly gaining the sort of mass pop recognition that might cement her place as a true diva, Amber's third LP sees the German singer delivering the kind of stock 21st century dancefloor material that club patrons crave. "Yes!," the first single taken from the album, unknowingly follows Kate Bush's use of James Joyce's Ulysses for a portion of the song's lyrics. While Bush's interpretation of the text is decidedly more erotic, Amber's track is undeniably infectious and features all the standard club elements of the day: massive drums, sweeping synthesizer flourishes, and the necessary dynamic shifts and vocal edits that eventually propelled the tune to the top of the Billboard dance chart. But with Chris Cox of the hugely successful Thunderpuss dance remix team on hand for production purposes, the album's stellar club aesthetics were almost a certainty. The follow-up single, "The Need to Be Naked," was equally successful. But despite having well-crafted sound throughout, Amber's lyrical material deprives most of the tracks here of any real longevity outside of their genre. Lines such as "Take off my pants, my shirt, my socks, and my shoes" may have significant resonance during clubland's wee hours, but elsewhere they only serve to denude a track of anything but the sort of inane sensuality that modern dance fare still thrives upon.~© JoE Silva /TiVo