Meet Ginny Arnell

The forced smile that creeps across Ginny Arnell's face on the cover of her MGM debut perfectly captures the adolescent melodrama and puppy love heartache that emanate from the record's oily pores -- when you're young and miserable, not even a major-label record deal can lift your spirits. Meet Ginny Arnell documents with soap opera accuracy the trials and travails of teenage life, when every romantic slight is the stuff of Shakespearian drama and every blemish a terminal disease: Hits like "Dumb Head" and "I Wish I Knew What Dress to Wear" document the kinds of existential crises that can only occur when you're young, hormonal, and too goddamn stupid to know what real problems are about. Producer Jim Vienneau and arrangers Bill McElhiney, Al Gorgoni, and Ray Stevens apply the treacle with a trowel, couching Arnell's dewy-eyed vocals in thick echo and anguished guitars. [Poker's CD reissue appends six bonus tracks to the original LP release.] ~ Jason Ankeny|