Not That Kind  (Audio CD) 
by Anastacia

After early support from Elton John and success across the UK and much of Europe, Anastacia's debut album gets a U.S. relaunch with one additional track. More Chaka Khan than Mariah Carey, the Chicago-born Anastacia brings both a powerful voice and a sense of restraint to these performances. There's no doubt that this is a grown woman, not another teenager copying Britney Spears' attempts to conjure Janet Jackson. All that said, something unconvincing lurks in Not That Kind. The singer (and co-writer of most of these songs) has obviously done her homework on '70s soul music; "Don'tcha Wanna" owes enough to Stevie Wonder's "I Believe (When I Fall in Love It Will Be Forever)" to occasion a co-writing credit to the maestro. It's simply that she relies too much on mannerism to fully give herself to the material. She sounds at home enough within these modernized pastiches of everything from late Atlantic-period Aretha to Donna Summer, but never really socks one home the way a complete original like Macy Gray would. In turn, that failure makes the attitudinizing of "Yo Trippin'" and "Why'd You Lie to Me" fall flat. --Rickey Wright