Tempted (Waterlillies album)

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Tempted
The album cover for Tempted, on which a woman wearing a green dress and sunglasses is throwing her head back
Studio album by
Waterlillies
Released1994
GenreDance
LabelKinetic/Sire/Reprise[1]
ProducerRay Carroll
Waterlillies chronology
Envoluptuousity
(1992) 		Tempted
(1994)
Singles from Tempted
  1. "Tempted"
    Released: 1994

Tempted is the second, and last, album by the American dance duo Waterlillies.[2][3] It was released in 1994.[4] The title track was a top 10 hit on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart.[5]

Production[edit]

The album was mostly produced by Ray Carroll. "Take My Breath Away" was written and produced by Sandra Jill Alikas.[6] Tempted includes an a cappella cover of the Carpenters' "Close to You".[7]

The Junior Vasquez remix of "Never Get Enough" topped the Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart for a week in April 1995.[8] It reached No. 40 on the Billboard Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Singles Sales chart.[citation needed]

Critical reception[edit]

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[9]
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music[10]
Entertainment WeeklyA−[11]
Knoxville News Sentinel[12]

Trouser Press called the title track "a rousing dance track that garnered a fair share of radio and club play," writing that, "except for a wholly unnecessary a cappella rendition of Bacharach/David’s 'Close to You', the Waterlillies’ sophomore album stretches the boundaries of a limited aesthetic palette with greater returns than the debut."[1] Entertainment Weekly thought that, "on its own, singer-producer Sandra Jill Alikas' voice, a stock-still alto not unlike Enya's, would be just another aural massage, but instrumentalist-producer Ray Carroll’s gently boinging tracks add all sorts of shadings—wanton desire in 'Tempted', all-enveloping warmth in 'I Wanna Be There', sorrow in 'Never Get Enough'."[11] Billboard deemed the title track "a jiggly dance/pop number," writing that "Alikas is an angelic, compelling presence."[13]

The Miami Herald called the album "hypnotic," writing that the musicians "somehow manage to inject heat and heart into mid-tempo dance tunes despite using the tools of the trade—synths and drum machines."[14] The Record determined that "Carroll revels in early-Eighties synth-pop, creating dreamy, if uninvolving, melodies, with drum-machine tracks and the occasional hip-hop rhythm."[15] The New Yorker opined that Tempted "happily evokes both the glory days of the electronic eighties and the recent work of other dance-floor mavens, like Saint Etienne and Opus III, but without their nostalgia."[16]

AllMusic wrote that, "what sounds at first blush like just one more formulaic house-beats-plus-diva dance album turns out, on second listen, to be something a bit more subversive than that."[9]

Track listing[edit]

No.TitleLength
1."Tempted" 
2."I Wanna Be There" 
3."Never Get Enough" 
4."Free" 
5."I Don't Want Your Love" 
6."Nolion Doll" 
7."Take My Breath Away" 
8."Supersonic" 
9."She Must Be in Love" 
10."How Does It Feel?" 
11."Work It Out" 
12."Close to You" 

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b "Waterlillies". Trouser Press. Retrieved 1 November 2021.
  2. ^ "Waterlillies Biography, Songs, & Albums". AllMusic.
  3. ^ Vorva, Jeff (26 Aug 1994). "Waterlillies' dance tracks listenable". Sidetracks. Northwest Herald. p. 9.
  4. ^ McGarrigle, Dale (10 Sep 1994). "Comfy sonic sofa: Waterlilies' 'Tempted' sounds like the future of dance music". Bangor Daily News.
  5. ^ "Arts". Miami Herald. Billboard. November 11, 1994. p. 17G.
  6. ^ "Pop Making Sense". Windy City Times. Retrieved 1 November 2021.
  7. ^ Everson, John (15 Sep 1994). "Waterlillies Tempted". Music. SouthtownStar. p. 8.
  8. ^ "Hot Dance Club songs". Billboard. April 1, 1995.
  9. ^ a b "Tempted". AllMusic.
  10. ^ Larkin, Colin (2006). The Encyclopedia of Popular Music. Vol. 8. MUZE. p. 533.
  11. ^ a b Browne, David. "Tempted". Entertainment Weekly.
  12. ^ Campbell, Chuck (September 6, 1994). "New Releases: Edie Brickell, The Waterlillies, Lusicous Jackson". Knoxville News Sentinel.
  13. ^ "Single Reviews - The Waterlillies Tempted". Billboard. Vol. 106, no. 36. Sep 3, 1994. p. 71.
  14. ^ Cohen, Howard (July 9, 1995). "Classic Discs: Dance Music from Disco to Techno". Arts. Miami Herald. p. 1.
  15. ^ Porter, Mark (December 9, 1994). "In the Clubs". Lifestyle/Previews. The Record. p. 7.
  16. ^ "Clubs". The New Yorker. Vol. 70. November 14, 1994. p. 25.
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