POP MUSIC REVIEW : Wash Tries to Reclaim Her Voice

If the dance-floor prescriptions of two decades ago were being filled by Dr. Feelgood--serving up fatback rhythms and soul-soaked voices--today’s ministering physician might be Dr. Frankenstein, using technology and media to stitch together the ostensibly perfect song.

Singer Martha Wash must have signed her organ donor card, because her uncredited voice has been appropriated by no fewer than three post-mortem dance-music constructs: Seduction, Black Box and C+C Music Factory. On Sunday at the NYC dance club in Costa Mesa, Wash tried to reclaim her voice.

In the wake of the Milli Vanilli scandal, much attention has come to Wash and the way producers now manipulate sound and image to make the sleekest product: Start with digitally-generated music untouched by human hands, and if the singer isn’t great looking just get some svelte thing to pose in the video alongside a dancin’ rapper.

Unfortunately, Wash’s solo bid was only slightly less ersatz and calculated than that. She told the crowd, “All that music you’ve been hearing and people you’ve been seeing is a lie! I’m not lip-syncing up here.” But she evidently had no qualms about performing with backing tapes instead of a band, or using so much digital echo on her competent though unexceptional voice that it might as well have been canned.

Beginning some two hours after the announced time, her 20-minute, four-song set--including Black Box’s “Everybody Everybody” and C+C Music Factory’s “Gonna Make You Sweat”--showed no more passion or immediacy than a TV aerobics class.