I Wish I Could Have Loved You More

Candie Payne's debut album *I Wish I Could Have Loved You More *has something of a "Saturday Night, Sunday Morning" quality about it, not only in terms of the musical reference points (in her MySpace page, Payne notes Dusty, Peggy, Nina and Billie along with Serge Gainsbourg and John Barry) but also in terms of the end-of-a-relationship emotional terrain. As such, it does a pretty good job of dancing away the heartache, but is perhaps as not as ambitious as it might have been.

In theory someone with the moniker 'Candie Payne' should be a porn star; in practice, the singer is bingeing on break-up more than selling seduction, but the two are hardly mutually exclusive, as tracks like "By Tomorrow," "Take Me" and "All I Need" demonstrate. The latter track is one of the album's strongest, but it is "A Different You", reminiscent of the Drifters and the Brill-Building era, that most clearly reveals the album's intent. Although the retro-1960s approach is hardly an original one, there are a lot of nice details in the songs, from *the Godfather *horn in "Why Should I Settle for You" to the crazed organ in "Hey Goodbye". It's just unfortunate the production isn't warmer and more atmospheric.

Judging from Payne's heavy touring schedule at present, we may well be hearing more from her. Hopefully her future work will be a little less restrained and respectful, perhaps drawing on some of her more outré influences, such as the Band or Jonathan Richman. Harsher souls might think she needs to get over it, but perhaps it would be fairer to say that Candie Payne's *I Wish I Could Have Loved You More *is not alright, but it's okay.