Katrina and the Waves — Waves

The followup to their big debut, this came out just a year or so later, in 1986. With a huge hit and a successful album written almost entirely by Kimberly Rew, , the followup let other band members, lead singer Katrina Leskanich and Vince de la Cruz, do most of the songwriting, and the result is . . . adequate. This one never really connected with me the way their debut did. Leskanich wrote one song that I love, “Riding Shotgun,” but the rest of it is a bit of a reach and just not a great one. So, we played it a lot when we got it back in 1986, and really not very often since. It’s not bad at all, it’s just also not strong.