March 1, 1999

Finally

There's a party going on down [a]Blackstreet[/a] and you're all invited....

6 / 10 There's a party going on down Blackstreet and you're all invited. That's alongside Janet Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Mary J Blige and Jay-Z, of course - a bunch of A-list celebs who imbue Teddy Riley and crew's third album 'Finally' with ever more lashings of schmoove-groove cred.

Such a shame, then, that Blackstreet's cool has to be so corny. Indeed, swingbeat must be the only remaining genre that allows - hell, encourages = its protagonists to whisper and coo and ham it up 'til the sexualized tones become positively slapstick. New single 'Girlfriend/Boyfriend', featuring Janet Jackson, may have all the club chic savvy but it grates with over-sentimentality. Ditto every other track.

Blackstreet do, however, have a full understanding of the emotional mechanics of nu soul - slick, boy-band-annihilating harmonies, undeniably fluid lead vocals, loose, lateral-thinking digital rhythms, shedloads of luurve, a vocoder - and can pull magic out of the hat with regularity. Just enough, perhaps, to level out the over-scrubbed sheen and soppy balladeering.

So, the party may be in full swing, but a few more hot and sizzling sausages on the soul barbecue wouldn't go amiss.