New Adventures - Gale Garnett

Clearly, RCA had a lot of faith in Garnett, as New Adventures was not only her fifth album overall, but also her fifth album for the label in about two years, though she'd been unable to follow up 1964's "We'll Sing in the Sunshine" with another Top 40 hit. New Adventures, however, failed to deliver either commercial success or even anything especially new. Instead, it was another set of versatile but rather pedestrian, mostly self-penned material that seemed to indicate she was unsure of whether to target the supper club market or the more youthful pop/rock one. Its reach was at least marginally wider than some of her less impressive prior RCA efforts. "Where Did You Go?" scuffed at the border of folk-rock with its earnest melody and spidery electric guitar; "Calm and Collected" was middling bluesy pop with a surprisingly aggressive lyric; the weird "Angle Song" was spiced with surf exotica; and "That Was Me You Ran Over" had skittering organ and a raunchy Dave Clark Five-like saxophone. Much of the rest, however, was dedicated to undistinguished material with a nightclub-loungey vibe, including a rave-up makeover of "It Ain't Necessarily So." Though Garnett did produce some interesting pop-folk early in her career, it may just be that she would have been more suited to the pre-Beatles adult pop vocal audience than the more volatile mid-'60s music scene. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide