Here It Is

THE COVER GIRLS Here It Is (Epic) The late '80s saw a virtual epidemic of soulful, dance-oriented, usually multiracial girl groups whose clever managers stuck their pretty voices on deliberately anonymous pop floss. Why someone decided to hire, say, three girls to form Seduction and be just as robotic and unimaginative as Stacey Q all by her lonesome is still a mystery. But that someone, and the various canny someones behind the Cover Girls and the vastly superior En Vogue, are profiting nicely nonetheless. The three Cover Girls can certainly sing, in that distant, sexy-but-fragile way that has been standard in girl groups since Diana Ross fronted the Supremes, and Here It Is gives the Girls one radio-friendly tune after another. A cover of the 1977 Rose Royce cut ''Wishing on a Star'' shows off their clear, bell-like tones; ''If You Want My Love (Here It Is)'' and ''Gotta Get Up'' go crazy with rhythm; and ''Thank You'' goes out to all the tender-loving men in the house. Heard one by one, the songs on Here It Is make great airheaded summer radio; but an album's-length of these dizzy dames is slow death. C+ -Arion Berger

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