Short Takes
MUSIC
Disappointingly Small Step
IT'S BEEN FOUR YEARS SINCE BOBBY BROWN's album Don't Be Cruel marked "new jack swing" as a creative hotbed of black pop. The fresh mix of funky, hiphop beats and bright, soulful melodies set a widely influential musical style, fitting perfectly around Brown's slim vocal talents. Naturally, expectations were out of sight for Brown's latest solo outing, Bobby, which assembles the same producers as Cruel. The album, however, doesn't pack the wallop to distinguish it from other slick R. & B. records on the charts these days. Something in Common, a ballad Brown shares with his wife Whitney Houston is typical of the problem: short on juice but heavy on sap. New jack may not be exhausted, but right now Bobby is fresh out of new ideas.
MUSIC
Religious Roots
- EVEN GEFFEN RECORDS BELIEVES IN FAMily values these days. Yes, the outfit that gave us the devilish Guns N' Roses is now pushing MICHAEL W. SMITH, a contemporary Christian star. Last year Smith's Place in This World was a No. 6 pop single. With his new album, Change Your World, Smith aims for the loftier success of Amy Grant, who blazed the Christian-to-pop crossover. But while the secular songs Geffen will promote to radio are pleasant (the syrupy duet with Grant, Somewhere Somehow, could be a smash), the album's better cuts reflect Smith's religious roots. A standout: Cross of Gold, which challenges people who wear holy symbols around their necks but lack saintliness in their souls.
BOOKS
Many a Slip . . .
ABOUT 40% OF AMERICANS DRINK WINE at least occasionally. Any of them who latch onto WINE SNOBBERY (Simon & Schuster; $20) will have their eyebrows raised by this self-styled expose of what's behind -- and what sometimes goes into -- the noble beverage. In remorseless detail, British oenophile Andrew Barr explains how France's supposedly rigid appellation laws protect mediocrity more than excellence, why cheap champagne is often better than top brands costing upwards of $40, and how producers have got away with murder -- literally -- by dosing their wines with dangerous additives. Like most Savonarolas, Barr could lighten up a little, but there's no question that he knows which clos have skeletons in them.
TELEVISION
Women's Wear Weekly
LEAVE IT TO CNN, THE WORLD'S BACK fence, to make the ephemeral universal. Each weekend, CNN airs STYLE WITH ELSA KLENSCH, a brisk survey of how rich people live, dress and accessorize. The show offers runway reports of next season's couture (for the women) with more cleavage than anywhere this side of pay cable (for men), plus grooming tips and a visit to some fashion pooh-bah's aerie. Hovering above the glitz, as stately and nurturing as the Queen Mum, is the Australian-born Klensch. For Elsa, shoddy clothes and naughty tattle simply n'existent pas. "Karl Lagerfeld could kill his mother," she told HG, "and I'd just ask him about the design of his clothes." Who else could merge Diana Vreeland and Diane Sawyer? No one Elsa.
CINEMA
Retro Preppies
SNOOTY SCHOOL, SNOTTY PREPPIES, THE socially unenlightened 1950s. Sound retrograde enough for you? Wait until you see SCHOOL TIES. It even looks like the 1956 movie version of Tea and Sympathy and shares with it and other prep- school dramas a certain earnest didacticism. This time the sensitive schoolboy is not sexually suspect. He is a poor Jewish lad from Scranton, Pennsylvania, recruited to lead dear old St. Matthews to gridiron glory. David Greene (Brendan Fraser) does so, but when his religious affiliation is discovered, anti-Semitism, followed predictably by soul-searching, breaks out. The film is well meant and, in its old-fashioned way, well made and well acted. But one is always about two moves ahead of the plot, which is not exactly rich in new news.