Affirmation

1	Affirmation 4:56
2	Hold Me 4:50
3	I Knew I Loved You 4:10
4	The Best Thing 4:19
5	Crash and Burn 4:41
6	Chained To You 4:08
7	The Animal Song 4:39
8	The Lover After Me 4:50
9	Two Beds And A Coffee Machine 3:27
10	You Can Still Be Free 4:18
11	Gunning Down Romance 5:34
12	I Don't Know You Anymore 3:50

Barnes & Noble

Sure, the snobs among us scoffed when Australian pop kings Savage Garden scored a multiplatinum smash with their self-titled debut on the strength of the No. 1 ballad "Truly, Madly, Deeply." But they might sigh out of the other side of their collective grimace if they were to witness the summertime lift that propels lead vocalist Darren Hayes's passionate ode to humanism, "Affirmation," or the post-Backstreet eloquence of the dreamy ballad, "I Knew I Loved You," or the keening chords of the folk-rocker "The Lover After Me." Still, even if the snidesters were to manage the impossible and close their needy souls to these or any of a hundred equally powerful moments herein, I'd hope they could at least acknowledge these fresh-faced popsters' achievement: By leaving hip-hop out of the Backstreet/Britney aesthetic, they've opened up the sound of teenage America to audiences who feel more at home with '80s power ballads and '70s soft-rock than brash, '90s beats -- and that's no crime where I come from. Jon Dolan

All Music Guide

Savage Garden managed to slip underneath everyone's radar and go multi-platinum with their 1997 debut. The Australian duo wasn't hip enough to warrant coverage in the music press, even after they had a series of hit singles, largely because they traded in the least-respected rock genre: soft rock. Like any soft-rock group, they were a product of their times. In the early '80s, that meant adding some lite-country influences to the melodic pop base. In the late '90s, it meant adding mild dance-club beats, even on the ballads. Roxette sort of pioneered this in the late '80s, and Savage Garden really picked up the torch for this dance-inflected soft rock, whether they want to admit it or not. Unfortunately, that also means that they, like Roxette, are primarily a singles act, capable of crafting a handful of good tunes on each album, along with a bunch of pleasant filler. That was the case with the multiplatinum Savage Garden, as it is with this sequel, Affirmation. Since Savage Garden was such a success on adult-contemporary radio, it's not a surprise that Darren Hayes and Daniel Jones have decided to lean a little heavier on the ballads this time around, to the extent that even uptempo tracks like "Affirmation" and "Hold Me," or midtempo numbers like "The Lover After Me" feel like ballads. On the whole, this isn't a bad thing, since it gives the album some coherence. (Also, "Chained to You," the hardest dance song here, feels a little forced.) Plus, Savage Garden has a knack for delivering this professional, well-crafted melodic pop -- if some songs aren't as memorable as others, that's just the way the game of mainstream pop is played. There aren't any bad pieces on Affirmation (well, with the exception of the lyrically tortured "The Animal Song"), just some that aren't quite as hooky or memorable as "I Knew I Loved You" or the title track, or for those fans who like SG's piano ballads, "I Don't Know You Anymore." Like the debut, Affirmation is hardly earth-shattering, but it's well-done mainstream adult pop whose best moments are ideal for radio play. Those moments may be better heard on a greatest-hits collection someday, but this album is fine on its own terms; it is so well-constructed that the filler goes down easily. Stephen Thomas Erlewine