About this Artist

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Editorial Reviews

Composer Zina Goldrich and lyricist Marcy Heisler have been writing songs together since 1993, earning cuts on albums by such Broadway stars as Kristin Chenoweth, Susan Egan, and Rebecca Luker while writing Off-Broadway musicals like Dear Edwina, which got its own cast album in 2008. They have also done a little recording of their own material, but this is their first full-fledged album under the duo name Marcy & Zina. As might be expected, it is something of a "greatest-hits" collection, including a number of songs that have turned up on other people's albums over the years, notably the much-recorded "Taylor, the Latte Boy." That song, sung here by Goldrich (Heisler took the lead when they did it on the 2006 various-artists album One Meat Ball), is typical of the songs here, many of which no doubt were written for musical theater projects. It is a character song, it is a love song, and it is amusing. Goldrich writes appealing pop music performed in soft rock and cabaret arrangements, and Heisler writes lyrics in which, for the most part, sincere, ingenuous, young, present-day women reflect on the ups and downs of love. Love is, of course, the primary subject of all pop music lyrics, but these songs are specific. The lovers often have names, even when they are imaginary ("Gabriel's List") and occupations (Taylor works at Starbucks, of course); they may even have hometowns ("Baltimore"). The men are sometimes insensitive and manipulative, the women-narrators sometimes not very bright. Heisler is interested in both words in the phrase "romantic comedy" equally, so sometimes the songs are devotional but not funny ("Welcome the Rain," which sounds tailor-made for Melissa Manchester circa 1978), and sometimes they're funny without concerning love "(Alto's Lament," a show business number about a perpetual second-banana forced to sing only the harmony parts in Broadway shows). But usually, they're both. For the most part, Goldrich and Heisler alternate on the vocals (they sing the lead-off song, "Make Your Own Party," together), and there are also guest vocalists: Jill Abramovitz handles both comic songs "Los Pinguinos" (which forces her to squawk more like a duck than the intended penguin) and "Gabriel's List," while Scott Coulter takes "Welcome the Rain." But despite having four different singers, the album has a consistency of viewpoint that may suggest Goldrich and Heisler have been selective in assembling material appropriate to a singer/songwriter sort of collection. After all, musical comedies require more than just songs sung by earnest young women in search of true love., All Music Guide All Music Guide

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