Forgive us if we’re a bit skeptical when a TV actor releases an album. Need we remind you of Isabel Sanford’s Weezy Sings The Blues? Or Dustin Diamond’s Papa Don’t Screech? And don’t even get us started on the 15 bucks we wasted on The Two Sides of Leonard Nimoy.
So you understand why an album from Matthew Morrison, our dear Mr. Schuester from Glee, didn’t exactly leave us excited. But on a two-hour drive with our parents, we were faced with few audio options. 120 minutes of our Mom telling us Dr Oz’s latest cures for the squirts. A favorite CD that’s always in rotation in their Cadillac: Old Rugged Cross & Other Slow-Jam Hymns: The Armageddon Remixes. Or Matthew Morrison’s self-titled CD, which we grabbed off our desk as we ran out the door to meet Mom & Dad.
And you know what? Lesser of three evils notwithstanding, we actually like it. Sure, it’s a little more teenage-girl romanti-pop than we normally listen to, but it has some good tunes. Even the dreaded ukulele-fueled duet with Gwyneth Paltrow of Over the Rainbow didn’t have us throwing up out the window like we expected. Plus, collaborations with Sting and Elton John give this guy plenty of street cred.
The first track, Summer Rain, had us humming along by the chorus, too. We’re just a little creeped out that our mother said how “pretty” it is. After all, it’s about making love in the rain on the roof, touching his lover “there,” and not caring if a thousand people are watching. To say nothing of the fact that sex on the roof in the rain is just gross. There’s the shingle-burn on your back, and rain dripping out of all sorts of cracks and holes. Not a pretty sight.
Regardless, buy this CD and consider the TV-star-turned-pop-artist curse officially broken. At least until Dr. Phil’s cover-song album of Wiz Khalifa tracks hits shelves next month.
$7.99 on iTunes
$13.72 CD at Amazon.com
