Bette Midler - Thighs And Whispers CDs • Vinyl Records • LPs • Music Albums

This last-ditch effort to present Bette Midler as a mainstream pop-disco singer succeeds only too well. Though Midler sings on pitch for once, she squelches her personality for the sake of musical propriety, and with her raucous chutzpah muted, becomes a very mundane vocalist given to affecting a cramped, throaty croon. "Big Noise from Winnetka," a swing-era camp chestnut, is Thighs and Whispers' highlight, thanks less to the Divine Miss M. than to Arif Mardin's classy disco-swing production.

"Millworker," though decently sung, misses the dramatic subtlety of James Taylor's version, and it can't hold a candle to Midler's riskier dramatic monologue of John Prine's "Hello in There"
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