Anita Baker is a legendary vocal embellisher; she can hold the end of a line and bend that final syllable through several notes in her trademark smokey alto, thus giving the lyric an extra emotional twist. Audiences love this sort of vocal ornamentation, and a singer must resist the temptation to overdo it, for at a certain point, decoration becomes clutter. Unfortunately, Baker succumbs to that temptation on her new album, Rhythm of Love, which is so embellished with slides, moans and trills it's often difficult to find the songs underneath it all. --Goeffrey Himes
