Bette Midler - No Frills CDs • Vinyl Records • LPs • Music Albums

don't seem connected to one another.

No Frills nevertheless contains three memorable performances. Done with a sly, sassy insouciance, Marshall Crenshaw's "Favorite Waste of Time" may be Midler's finest rock performance ever. On the Rolling Stones' "Beast of Burden," she projects an interestingly huffy theatricality. And she infuses the Barry Mann-Cynthia Weil-Tom Snow ballad "All I Need to Know" with a smoky, oratorical fervor.

But for a project of this magnitude, too many of the songs fall short of the singer. Instead of silly pop smut ("Let Me Drive"), tepid technopop ("Is It Love") and preciously arty nostalgia ("Soda and a Souvenir," "Come Back Jimmy Dean"), Midler should have gone for the moon and stuck with songs that measure up to her own gigantic talents. (RS 405)

STEPHEN HOLDEN