Donny Osmond
During the course of his seemingly centuries-long career, Donny Osmond has released a grand total of 54 albums. Fifty-four. It's tempting to call each one a career nadir, but that would be an easy punch, not to mention inaccurate.
That particular dishonorific belongs not to Osmond's musical oeuvre -- which at its worst merely causes extreme drowsiness and tooth decay -- but to his abortive stint as a boxer: Back in the early '90s, Donny O entered the ring against former "Partridge Family" kid Danny Bonaduce -- and promptly had his famously toothy grin wiped right off his shiny, happy face.
So, just where is Bonaduce when we really need him? Good question. Judging from Osmond's latest, "What I Meant to Say," the guy could use a good clock-cleaning.
Osmond sleep-walks through much of the disc, snoring his way through a nasal rendition of the Bacharach-David classic "This Guy's in Love With You" and "My Perfect Rhyme," a cloying piano ballad, with all the passion of a bored bank teller.
Adding insult to inanity, Osmond chips in a cover of the eminently forgettable Richard Marx hit "Right Here Waiting." And no, he is not being ironic.
The CD, in short, is enough to make even Osmond's most committed detractors long for the days of "Puppy Love" and "The Twelfth of Never."
Okay, that's an overstatement -- no one's actually going to long for those days. Still, is a vaguely memorable hook or the occasional catchy chorus too much to ask?
Apparently so. With the irritatingly dull "What I Meant to Say," Osmond sets a new substandard. In the context of his interminable career, that's actually quite an accomplishment.
-- Shannon Zimmerman
