An Authentic Find

Tony Peyser

Mirror contributing writer

I was recently at a house high up in the Palisades when I was given a CD. I put it on in my car on the way home and decided to write a column about it before I got back down to Sunset. That is the Southern California definition of a great album. 
Los Angeles-based Wendie Colter did a couple of well-reviewed CDs with her group Box The Walls in the mid-1990s. Payday is her debut solo album and it fits nicely under the power pop heading. Colter’s catchy and well-observed songs would all work with just her sensational singing and guitar playing but she’s put together musicians who give them a sly and assured production. 
She’s been compared to Crowded House and Aimee Mann but she reminds me of Joan Osborne if she’d been influenced more by The Beatles than the blues. "7th Wave," the opening track, has this snappy chorus: "I will ride the 7th wave/Feel the ocean at my back/Lift me up from this watery grave/Up to the safe and solid ground." It would have been a perfect song for "The Perfect Storm" soundtrack. 
It’s easier to be a wise ass than wise and in "Popular Wisdom," Colter shows a gift for the latter: "Popular wisdom says/Find a mountain you can climb/Not too hard and not so high/That falling won’t be such a mean surprise." It’s a nice commentary on the tendency to play it safe when taking real chances is what’s called for. 
Jewel’s "You Were Meant For Me" described getting up, making breakfast, wiping off her mirror, making sure her keys aren’t in the door and her wet towels aren’t on the floor. I remember thinking: is this a song or her list of Dumb Things I Gotta Do Today? It left me wanting something more, like...content. No problem here as Colter grapples with life’s ongoing burdens in "Pushing The Rock Up The Hill" and wanting some kind of inner peace in "Is There A Place." The album closes with "Lean Into The Light," a majestic song about how we find our place on the planet. It has many great lines but here are my favorite ones: "Oh, what will you bring to the world/This world that needs nothing from you/Oh, but if you sing to the world/This world will sing back to you." It’s a beautiful sentiment and a wonderful, uplifting song. 
This is the kind of album this column was supposed to discover: up-and-coming talent with passion and smarts. CDNow has Payday for $14.22. 

The Goofy Band Name Of The Week is...S&M&M&M.

P.S. You can also buy Colter’s CD at www.radicalnote.com which happens to be a very cool site for very cool music.