Hotcakes wants to sizzle but when you take that first serious chew, the flake falls away and the words are runny, underdone.

Gone is the soft loneliness and sad cynicism of Carly's Anticipation album…. [Carly] seems to have lost that adrenal-inspiration only touring can ignite. It's been replaced by maritally exuberant content and a stay-at-home pace, doubtless totally fulfilling to live but less fun to eavesdrop on. "Forever My Love" … extols this bliss best.

Carly's songs have never been "heavy" or involving, but there was always enough successfully sublimated social comment and repetitive rhythms to make you whistle along in the shower or hum in the subway buzz. (p. 73)

If I dare compare, Carly's got the pyrotechnics but [Joni Mitchell's] got control. Carly fails to enlarge her stylistic idiom; Joni dares not miss that chance. Carly once wrote: "Whoever you want is exactly what I'm willing to be...