Alicia / Alicia Again

The first two solo albums from One Way's Alicia Myers are combined on this disc from SoulMusic.com. Both LPs were released in 1981, with only the debut making Billboard's R&B chart, where it narrowly missed the Top 40. Alicia was written almost entirely by One Way's unsung Kevin McCord, who produced the album with Al Perkins; it deserved much better than its lukewarm commercial reception, highlighted by the cult-classic quiet storm number "If You Play Your Cards Right" and the uplifting club gospel of "I Want to Thank You," which didn't chart until September 1982, re-released on I Fooled You This Time. Alicia Again, once again produced by Perkins but involving extensive songwriting input from Alicia's brother Jackie (McCord is absent), comes off as rushed, and not as much material sticks out, though it contains a similar mix of ballads, dancefloor cuts, and contemporary gospel flavors. The booklet contains full-page reproductions of each album's front and back sleeves, which makes up for SoulMusic.com's mystifying outer sleeve design: shrunken album covers inside gold-colored frames, placed on a smart phone wallpaper-like concrete wall, a few inches above a wooden floor. The liner notes feature several quotes from Myers. ~ Andy Kellman