Peggy Cone & the Central Park Stompers
Bad Girl Shoes

On the cover Bad Girl Shoes (Original Cast), singer Peggy Cone outgoing fashionmaven the Central Park Stompers, who seem to be wooing her with an offering of stylish shoes. The photo embodies what Bad Girl Shoes delivers: the "I want the world" demeanor of today's modern woman combined with the spirit of the perpetual party girl.

The five originals on this album emulate the gift shared by Cone and arranger Mark McCarron for combining old-fashioned musical creativity with a contemporary zeitgeist. Their songs have such a classic sound, you'd swear they came right out of a time capsule—"Central Park Stomp" could have been the party record of choice among WWII-era swingers. The title track and "Quick Slick Pick-Up Artist" distinguish themselves with Peggy's extroverted woman-of-the-new-millennium vitality, while "Jumpin On the Fast Track" and "Not Like Other Girls" are slower, smoother numbers that sublimely demonstrate the sultry quality of Cone's voice. Each of these songs embodies her determined attitude of having it all while having fun at the same time. (Who could misread lyrics like, "I want to be rich. I want to be famous. I want my picture in a magazine?").

As good as the originals are, classics like "Ding Dong Daddy," "World On a String," and "Finders Keepers" keep to the spirit of Bad Girl Shoes, and like the originals, the covered material perpetuates Cone's enduring, industrious essence. She even manages to make Madonna's "Material Girl" her own, and it really swings.

Since the resurgence of big band influences in popular music in the last decade, too many bands are described as expressing the essence of '40s swing music with a modern disposition. But in the case of Peggy Cone, in more ways than one, if the shoe fits....

-Jonathan Reed