Enjoying a largely teenage and preteen following,
Immature
moved from
Virgin
to
MCA
with its sophomore effort,
Playtyme Is Over
. The label switch didn't mean a change in focus -- the group (whose members were 11 or 12 at the time) still offered an abundance of hip-hop-influenced, medium-tempo new jack R&B grooves. And the same comparisons were being made; if you believed the hype,
was to the 1990s what
Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers
were to the 1950s,
the Jackson 5
was to the 1970s and
New Edition
was to the 1980s. But those groups had the chops and excellent songs to back up their hype; none of the tunes on
are memorable, let alone excellent. Cuts like
"Walk You Home"
and
"Never Lie"
have a generic, cookie-cutter quality, and they sound like the product of a marketing meeting rather than artistic inspiration. When
Lymon
,
Michael Jackson
Bobby Brown
were teenagers and sang about adolescent love, the sincerity jumped right out at you -- put on
's
"Why Do Fools Fall in Love,"
"Mr. Telephone Man"
or
"I Want You Back,"
and you find yourself thinking about what a bittersweet time adolescence could be. Put on
Playtyme is Over
, and all you're thinking about is how contrived and formulaic
sounds. ~ Alex Henderson