Alison Crockett's "band", a collection of "hot" studio musicians, is perfect. Starting from the ground up, her drummers are the tightest group of R&B mofos you've ever heard. They supply ample grace notes, tasteful fills, mini-solos (that's all the man, erm, woman will allow) and a wide spectrum of colors to hold these songs together. Her bassists are the type who pose as funk guys during the day, carefully concealing their secret identities as this generation's Ray Browns. They play the shit out of the harmonic structures, carefully adding enough blue notes to give character to these otherwise straightforward compositions. Producer, brother and multi-instrumentalist teddycrockett (sic) ably handles synth programming and guitar duties; his subtle string textures, Prince-like funky licks and occasional synth-axe leads keep the album tasteful.

Sound perfect? It might be if Miss Crockett's lyrics held more than an ounce of substance. Her voice, like those of her contemporaries (Vanity, Chaka Khan, Donna Summer and the funky divas of James Brown), isn't enough to make up for lyrical clichés like "Oh save me from lovin' you" ("Save Me"), "When I think of you, nothing seems to matter / all I think about is our love" and "you lookin' good, damn / I'm feelin' you, oh baby" ("When I Think of You"). Something as simple as a thesaurus, or the willpower to avoid emulating Lauryn Hill (there can be only one), could save On Becoming a Woman. I wish it would. As is, I'm just not feeling it.