The Pointer Sisters - Contact (CD)

All Music Guide

The Pointer Sisters' 13th charting LP, 1985's Contact, was an exercise in slick, edgy, synthesized pop with June, Anita, and Ruth Pointer trading vocal duties. Both "Dare Me" and "Freedom," easily the best songs here, peeled off the album and marched straight onto the singles charts. The former was an audacious, rough-and-ready come-on draped in a samba beat, wrapped in period trimmings, and brimming with sharp vocal harmonies. The latter, on the other hand, graced the RB Top 30 with a quiet, soulful dream, riding a light beat and little instrumentation. Elsewhere, though, the band packs in the punches across a steady flow of up-tempo grooves that heavy-handedly overlay synthesizers at almost every turn, most notably on "Twist My Arm," "Back in My Arms," and "Bodies and Souls." Listeners can only take a breather when The Pointer Sisters do, on the more restrained "Hey You" and "Contact." Overall, though, this set is a workout worthy of leg warmers.Contact, neither is there anything tha...t stands out as representative of the band at their best. Consummate performers, the trio is in excellent voice, their harmonies as pure as always. But by 1985 they seemed to have hit a plateau, not striving to change, but apparently happy enough to add synth pop RB to a market already glutted with the stuff. And, ultimately, the set -- good as it is -- founders in the decade's own miasma. - Amy Hanson, All Music Guide Read more Less