Lisa Taylor - Let Love Shine

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    Lisa Taylor brings a “girl next door” sensibility to her new album Let Love Shine. Now, let us consider that phrase ‘girl next door.’ People hold a certain perception of ladies described as the girl next door. “Nice” would be the prevailing perception. She’s nice looking. She’s nice to everyone on the block. The guys think she’s cool, but maybe a little boring. The sisters don’t have a problem with her, but she comes off as kind of unapproachable. Those perceptions, as Taylor shows on Let Love Shine, can be limited.

    Lisa Taylor brings a “girl next door” sensibility to her new album Let Love Shine. Now, let us consider that phrase ‘girl next door.’ People hold a certain perception of ladies described as the girl next door. “Nice” would be the prevailing perception. She’s nice looking. She’s nice to everyone on the block. The guys think she’s cool, but maybe a little boring. The sisters don’t have a problem with her, but she comes off as kind of unapproachable. Those perceptions, as Taylor shows on Let Love Shine, can be limited.

    Let Love Shine allows Taylor to give a voice to the contradictions and conflicts that reside in the mind of the girl next door. The native Hawaiian mines the nice girl in public/seductress behind closed doors dichotomy on the seductively funky “Shy Gurl.” Still waters, as they say, run deep, and this track finds Taylor revealing her deep well of passion to a fellow who is likely pleasantly surprised by the revelation. Taylor’s beau might be surprised, but the lyrics display this nice girl is very aware of her power. “Tonight’s the night/gonna say and do everything that’s been on my mind/I haven’t told you about the need that’s been building up inside/about the things I do to you in my dreams/boy I been waking up in a sweat/Getting’ tired of being the good girl/got some needs I gotta fill tonight.”

    Taylor’s self-awareness means that she realizes that nice girls often get taken for granted. That self-awareness takes Taylor to a dark place on “Used to Be The One.” Taylor paints a picture of a scorned woman who drawn into bouts of bitter recollections whenever she spots her ex with his new love.

    Nice girls expect other people to be nice, and they are not shy about being brutally honest to those who don’t measure up. Taylor musters that righteous indignation as she gives a philandering husband the verbal business on the jazzy “Man Like You.” “I have no use for a man like you,” Taylor sings in a voice that might remind some of a young Stephanie Mills. “You think we women are all the same/Call me on fashioned/But I’m quite happy with a life love/that’s the most important thing to me

    The girl next door knows when she finds that special thing – even if she can’t always find the right words. The mid tempo ballad “Funny Feeling” finds Taylor assaulting the listener with sweet sensations to show rather than tell us how love changed her life. Love makes the sun shine on a rainy day, and placed a smile on her face from the moment she got out of bed.

    The title track could easily become the next steppers anthem. Taylor sings about the glow she feels when she is spends time with the man she loves on this breezy mid tempo tune. “Everything thing that I’m feeling now/everything that I’m dreaming now/everything I ever needed to know is all right here/everything I could ever want/everything I could ever feel/Everything I ever needed to know is all right here.”

    Taylor explores the deeper emotions and senses on Let Love Shine. She paints vivid images of the joy of love found, the pain of losing a friend and the simultaneous feelings of rapture and fear of falling that often accompanies that trip into love. Still waters do indeed run deep. Recommended.

    By Howard Dukes