etty much abandoning the folkiness of her first two records, Michelle Shocked positioned her third album, 1989's CAPTAIN SWING, as a genre exercise, celebrating '40s jazz, jump blues, and swing. Truthfully, despite the presence of a full horn section on most of the songs, the album has even less to do with Louis Jordan or Benny Goodman than albums by '90s neo-swingers the likes of Big Bad Voodoo Daddy.
Which is not to say that CAPTAIN SWING is a bad album, just that it's closer to the country-pop style of Shocked's other albums than its reputation suggests. Opening with the slightly smarmy "God Is A Real-Estate Developer", the album quickly hits its stride with the second track, "On the Greener Side". A surprise MTV and radio hit, this is probably the best song Shocked ever recorded. Though the following nine tracks aren't quite this good, they're largely pleasant and tuneful.|
Rovi