Songs From Ally McBeal Featuring Vonda Shepard - Shepard, Vonda (CD 1998)

OK, I know it's a "chick show"... with a heavy focus on emotions and personalities rather than "hard facts" and action, and a guiding philosophy that often seems to veer into radical feminism. And, to make sure there aren't accidentally any males actually watching Ally McBeal, its network has placed it opposite Monday Night Football.

But despite all that, and despite my maleness (as seen clearly in my profile picture), I have actually watched the show. (Not during football season, of course!) And, while it has lots of silliness (which seems unfortunately to be increasing in later seasons of the show), and is not on the whole as good a lawyer show as The Practice, it is entertaining. And one of the entertaining things about it is the good songs that accompany the show; lots of great old classics, all sung by a female voice filled with soulfulness, while giving off a strong image of a confident woman who knows exactly what she's doing. I didn't recognize the voice, but ultimately I found out that the songs are sung by Vonda Shepard, a singer I'd vaguely heard of but wasn't really familiar with. And if you pay attention, you can actually see her on the show; she makes regular cameo appearances singing her songs in nightclubs attended by Ally McBeal and her associates.

I was pleased to find that there was a CD of music from Ally McBeal as performed by Vonda Shepard. This CD has 14 tracks, including the theme song from the show. The overall style of the songs is energetic ballads; no heavy rock or disco beats, but nothing sleepy either. Vonda plays piano as well as singing, and there is relatively little in the way of other instrumentation -- a little guitar and drums, but nothing getting in the way of the vocals and piano.

Here are the tracks:

1) Searchin' My Soul: The Ally McBeal theme song; a very catchy tune.

2) Ask The Lonely: I wasn't really familiar with this song in its original incarnation, but it's pretty good.

3) Walk Away Renee: A '60s classic.

4) Hooked On A Feeling: Another good song, but I find it to be missing something without that "Ooga-Chaka" chorus present in the '70s hit version... Vonda didn't go for that sort of thing.

5) You Belong To Me: That's the '50s song that starts "See the pyramids along the Nile...", not to be confused with the unrelated '70s Carly Simon song of that title.

6) The Wildest Times of the World: This was co-written by Vonda Shepard herself, and is copyright 1996, so it's a new song rather than an old classic like most of the others. (The CD came out in 1998, so the song was two years old by that time; I don't know where it previously appeared.) It's a nice song.

7) Someone You Use: A '70s song I wasn't familiar with, with a '60s girl-group sound to it with maybe a slight twinge of a "gospel" sound.

8) The End Of The World: An early '60s classic.

9) Tell Him: A classic '60s song given a powerful rendition here.

10) Neighborhood: Another '70s song I wasn't familiar with. A relatively slow, soft song compared to the rest of the collection.

11) Will You Marry Me: A Vonda Shepard co-written original from 1996. It seems to have the most beat of any of the songs on the disc, though hardly a heavy dance beat.

12) It's In His Kiss (The Shoop Shoop Song): An early '60s song that was recently redone as a big hit for Cher. Cher's rendition was more true to the original '60s sound, but that's not what Vonda was trying for here; she gets material from a wide variety of artists and decades, but does them in her own style, not imitating anyone else. She does a good job of it here.

13) I Only Want To Be With You: A '60s classic that's been redone a number of times. She does it as a fairly light, soft song, where some other artists' versions of this song were more hard-driving. It's very catchy.

14) Maryland: A 1996 Vonda Shepard original, written solely by her. While well-performed as with her other songs, there's nothing really catchy or memorable about this one.

Overall, a nice CD of pleasant songs, performed well. Vonda isn't my favorite singer and her songs don't excite great emotion in me, but they're good music to listen to anyway.