Love Me, Please Love Me

Fresh from her triumph at the 1967 Eurovision Song Contest, Shaw concentrated on determinedly MOR pop (not pop/rock) material on her third album. The program focused on songs by Jacques Brel, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Cole Porter, and the like, with only two contributions by her longtime songwriter Chris Andrews. She's no Barbra Streisand, to put it mildly, and the results held little charm either for her fan base or the larger adult market that she may have been trying to reach. The CD reissue is made more palatable by the addition of both sides of four 1967-68 singles, almost all of which were written by Andrews. These are more consistent with the pop/rock lite of her mid-'60s work, but are weaker than her biggest hits, although "Tonight in Tokyo," "You've Not Changed," and "Today" all made the UK Top 30; the Motown-influenced B-side "Stop" may be the highlight of the batch, although that's not saying much. ~ Richie Unterberger|