Blue Planet, by Donna Lewis

After the success of her debut album “Now In A Minute,” Donna Lewis attempted to catch lightning in a bottle a second time with her follow-up album, “Blue Planet,” which generally follows the same template of mixing gentle cooing lyrics with dance beats. By and large, the album was not a success, spawning one minor pop hit in “I Could Be The One” and a surprise Dance #1 hit with “Love Him,” thus leading Donna Lewis to be dropped from a major label and to cease making music for mainstream pop audiences, although to her credit she continued to make music for those smaller audiences who continued to enjoy her music. Even if this album is not well known to be nostalgic for many, is it a worthwhile album for people to discover? Let’s see.

The album begins with “Will Love Grow,” which compares love to a plant that must be carefully cultivated in one’s garden and that blossoms with care and providence, a lovely dance track. “I Could Be The One” is a flirtatious and lovely song about hoping that someone could be the one for someone, a song that is easy to enjoy. “Love Him” is a gorgeous and romantic dance pop track, the sort of song that should be a lot more common than it is. “Blue Planet” is a melancholy song about a vulnerable and melancholy earth in trouble. “Beauty & Wonder” is the opposite side of “Blue Planet,” in being a song about the beauty of life and love with a bit more of a rock edge thanks to its guitar. “Heaven Sent You” is a lovely dance pop song that reflects appreciation for a beloved partner, along with a long mostly instrumental outro. “Harvest Moon” is a sensual call to a lover to come inside and enjoy the love and affection she has to provide, set to a rather gentle and even sleepy instrumentation that reminds one of the debut album. “Falling” is a lovely and gentle song about the uncertainty of falling in love, with some brassy instrumentation that certainly gives it some single potential. “Lay Me Down” is an upbeat and sensual song about lovemaking, another song that deserves a lot more attention than it receives. “Unforgiven” is a brief and reflective song that harkens back to her introduction, a melancholy but lovely song. “Take Me Home” closes the album with a long and beautiful song about love and relationships, ending with a hidden and beautiful instrumental track that brings the album full circle.

If Blue Planet has suffered in comparison with Now In A Minute, it is because there is no hit as inescapably cute and catchy as I Love You Always Forever. If you like the same sort of sound as the original album, though, this album has a lot to offer. It is not a retread of the original album by any means, and expands Donna Lewis’ concern from love and relationships (which still get a lot of focus here) to a concern for the well-being of creation as a whole, and which demonstrate a maturation and development of her sound to make it more mainstream dance oriented, while still retaining the elements that made her material as cute as it was before. There is a lot to appreciate here, and it’s a shame that this album is not better known among those who might very well like what it has to offer.