Hmm...I wouldn't call RAL a party album, or upbeat at all. The lyrics to most of the songs are really dark, and there's even something a little morose about the music & production, beneath the '80s synthesizers and dance beats.
As far as Street Angel...most of the songs are nearly incomprehensible, lyrics-wise, even by Stevie standards. But they're catchy tunes - I'm thinking specifically of Greta, Love Is Like a River, and Listen to the Rain. But if you're somebody who pays a lot of attention to lyrics (like me), the fact that they don't make a hell of a lot of sense will start to grate on you after awhile.
I don't think BD or RAL have any duds on them at all, but all the rest of Stevie's albums do, and SA has more of them than any other album, IMO. The best songs from it are on the Enchanted box set, and I much prefer the Enchanted versions of those songs to the ones on Street Angel.
|