Burt Bacharach
At This Time

Has Burt also fallen into the trap of forced youthfulness? Or is his work simply one that gives us back a Bacharach armed more with good intentions than good results? Well yes, the 77-year-old (!) author and composer of gems like "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head," "I Say A Little Prayer, Anyone Who Had A Heart," "Walk On By," or "Arthur's Theme," in short, someone with a respectable past, gives the Bacharach we know a shake-up, removes the tux and bow tie, and dons more comfortable and sober everyday clothes (as captured on the cover) to emphasize the fact that this time, this album is made of rawer and more essential songs, I would dare to say "more engaged" without that "symphonism" and the productive redundancy that characterized his previous productions.

After spending a lifetime singing about love, passions, and privacy, the good old Burt dusts off his old cowboy's colt and shoots tracks like "Who are these People," where the voice of his trusted friend Elvis Costello sings to us "Who are these people who have told us nothing but lies?... Someone stop them!" with clear references to Bush's politics or the solemn and patriotic "Go Ask Shakespeare," where a more inspired than ever Rufus Wainwright "hopes for a better world. He will have to wait a long time but will not give up." Of course, the intentions wouldn't be bad; unfortunately, those intentions don't always align with the results, and indeed, it's the purely musical part that suffers the most. The bases by Dr. Dre, better known as Eminem's producer, do not at all shake off the molasses, the languor, and the sweetness of pseudo-lounge sounds with which our man (complete with orchestras behind him) has always surrounded himself.

Could we ask something different of him at 77 years old? Certainly, it had been a while since an album solely under his name was released, and surely the events of the twin towers must have shaken him quite a bit, as he declares in the few interviews granted, and must have served as a propulsive force to get back to work. But the album, which Bacharach describes as "a punch in the stomach delivered with a velvet glove," despite many words, seems more like a weak and intimidated punch: a commendation to newfound healthy American pride with heartfelt indignation or an operation all in all tepid and tasteless like the pre-cooked soups served in certain hospices? I leave the choice of the most appropriate hypothesis to the romantic Debaserians immersed in this good-natured Christmas dimension.