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Little Annie, "Short and Sweet"
Jackamo was a pretty odd and uncompromising album, but some insightful person at Atco still managed to see commercial potential in it and Annie wound up with a major label record deal.  Unfortunately, that partnership did not get a chance to flourish, as Atco dissolved before her completed follow-up album could be released.  In fact, that album still hasn't been released.  Undeterred, Annie returned to On-U Sound and recorded Short and Sweet (1992), a very fun, accessible, and dance-friendly effort that ironically seems like it could have been wildly successful if it had had a major label's promotional budget behind it.
At this point in her career, Annie was starting to seem like a diminutive female David Bowie, boldly reinventing herself with each new album.  Having already passed through her "noisy and disturbing" and "eclectic, leftfield dub songstress" phases, Short and Sweet marked the beginning (and end) of her "urbane dance diva" period.  One of the reasons that this album works so well, however, is that Annie and her prodigiously talented collaborators Doug Wimbish and Skip McDonald (Tackhead/Dub Syndicate) did not treat their foray into dance pop as slumming.  Instead, they demanded "said musical form to rise to their high standards."  Sure, there are some thumping beats, fake horn stabs, and unapologetically big, radio-friendly choruses here, such as on "Watch the World Go Bye" and "Going For Gold," but the songs are among the catchiest and most scathingly witty that Annie has written and the music is generally pretty funky and punchy.
Annie's talent as a singer clearly evolved a lot in the five years between Jackamo and Short and Sweet, as she effortlessly uses dynamic shifts to give her words maximum impact.  In fact, most of my favorite parts of the album are the breathy or conversational asides ("you look like you've been kissing, dear, the wrong end of a hammer") rather than the hooks.  This is the first album in which Annie's personality seems to survive the transition into song undiluted.  No matter how toothless or straightforward a song initially seems, there is always at least one very amusing or clever bit that injects it with a charisma that is hard to resist.
The only real misfire is the shallow vamping of "Give It To Me," whose sole lyrical content consists of variations of the title.  Even then, however, it is difficult to totally write-off: it could be taken as a snarky parody of sultry pop (an interpretation that is bolstered by lines like "give it to me forthwith").  Still, the accompanying music is pretty uninspired.  That song is the exception rather than the rule though–this is a very solid batch of songs.  There are at least two or three of them that probably would have been hits if the music world were a totally level playing field and even the less accessible moments still boast quite a bit of personality and sharp wordplay.
I was definitely caught a bit off-guard by how much I enjoyed this album, as it is easy to picture a twelve year-old girl happily doing the Roger Rabbit in front of her mirror to catchier songs like "Going For Gold" or "I Think of You," but the actual content remains very intelligent and funny throughout.  There's also quite a bit of heartache and darkness lurking beneath the breezy, bouncy surface, as the album was written during the dissolution of Annie's marriage.  That undercurrent finally manages to force its way to the fore for the album's finale and centerpiece, the steadily escalating and cathartic "If Cain Were Able," a piece that remains one of the clear highlights of Annie's discography (especially once the bass and drums finally kick in).  That might be the only conventionally great song here that I can listen to with no cognitive dissonance issues, but the rest of the album boasts quite a few killer guilty pleasures (seriously guilty–I think some of the beats here could be reasonably described as "new jack swing").  I'm glad Annie went elsewhere stylistically after this album, but this is a very inspired, charming, and entertaining one-off effort and an illuminating vision of what early '90s pop could have been.
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