Whereas Winwood's previous two albums of the '90s were just exercises in underachievement, this new disc is his nadir. Teaming with middle-of-the-road schlockmeister Narada Michael Walden, Winwood embellishes his pedestrian material with glossy synths, drum machines, antiseptic female backing vocals and a touch of brittle "funk" guitar -- in essence, he's made a quintessential mid-'80s urban-pop record. Hard to believe this is the same man who belted out ferocious, roughly hewn R&B in the Spencer Davis Group and championed pastoral prog-rock in Traffic; here, he sounds like a former member of Johnny Hates Jazz who hasn't realized it's 1997 -- not 1987. -- Dave Veitch