Be True to Yourself

Taking his titular advice to heart, Joey Molland sticks to lush, stately pop music on Be True to Yourself. It could be called Beatlesque, but a more accurate description is Badfinger-esque: he pledges allegiance to his old bands mix of McCartney and Harrison, weaving fuzzy guitar through stately piano chords. Molland has never quite abandoned this sound over the years -- at times, he played it under some iteration of Badfingers name -- but hes given an invaluable assist on Be True to Yourself by Mark Hudson, a producer who made many of Ringo Starrs latter-day albums quite fetching aural candy. Hudson pulls off the same trick here, enlisting such famous friends as Micky Dolenz and Julian Lennon to give Molland a boost but always keeping the focus on melodies that are alternately bouncy and sweet. Its tight, polished, and accomplished in a way many of Mollands albums rarely are, and that focus helps turn Be True to Yourself into a warm, welcoming coda to the Badfinger guitarists career. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine