22. Dionne Warwick, The Dionne Warwick Collection: Her All-Time Greatest Hits (Rhino, 1989)
I'm skeptical of calling an album a "guilty pleasure", but if anything qualifies for me, this is it. I have a friend who adores Barry Manilow because her parents played a lot of "Copacabana" when she was very young. Oddly enough, my parents didn't own a single Dionne Warwick record (my Dad opted for Burt Bacharach (dreadfully) singing his own material). Still, it seemed like she was everywhere during my formative years--in the car, in restaurants, at the barber's. Yes, it was almost muzak, but throughout the '60s, Bacharach's matchless arrangements (somewhere between immaculate, intricate and ingenuous), Hal David's lyrics and Dionne's yearning, elegant vocals coalesced into classy, emotionally complex pop of the highest order. "Walk On By", "Do You Know The Way to San Jose", "I Say A Little Prayer" and all the rest remain influential (if not exactly hip) today, even if very few can fully replicate what these three talents accomplished together.
I'm skeptical of calling an album a "guilty pleasure", but if anything qualifies for me, this is it. I have a friend who adores Barry Manilow because her parents played a lot of "Copacabana" when she was very young. Oddly enough, my parents didn't own a single Dionne Warwick record (my Dad opted for Burt Bacharach (dreadfully) singing his own material). Still, it seemed like she was everywhere during my formative years--in the car, in restaurants, at the barber's. Yes, it was almost muzak, but throughout the '60s, Bacharach's matchless arrangements (somewhere between immaculate, intricate and ingenuous), Hal David's lyrics and Dionne's yearning, elegant vocals coalesced into classy, emotionally complex pop of the highest order. "Walk On By", "Do You Know The Way to San Jose", "I Say A Little Prayer" and all the rest remain influential (if not exactly hip) today, even if very few can fully replicate what these three talents accomplished together.
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