It's best to start with the "Work that" side, as it kicks off with the two best cuts - "Paradise," an upscale version of acid house with a squiggly synth line snaking in and out of a choppy electric piano rhythm, and "Keep On Dancin'," a gospel-based house workout. "Workin' Overtime" finds Ross teamed again with former Chic producer Nile Rodgers, who engineered her last big comeback, 1980's "Ross," producing hits like "I'm Coming Out" and "Upside Down." Here Rodgers writes, performs and produces two sides (cutely called "Work this" and "Work that") of perfectly functional, albeit automated, funk. The results are stylistically successful, but Ross sacrifices whatever persona she had in the process. Ross has clearly been listening to the boys too - she dabbles in the percussion-over-all "new jack swing" style exemplified by Bobby Brown, Guy and Johnny Kemp.
Diana Ross: 'Workin' Overtime' After a handful of disappointing albums for RCA, Diana Ross returns to home base, Motown Records, and tries to regain some long-lost street credibility with "Workin' Overtime." Absent from dance floors and airwaves for several years, Ross seems to have realized with a shock that there's a new group of kids out there who don't know she was once "the Boss." So Ross retaliated by donning patchy leathers and ripped jeans for the cover photo, and copping the moves of new girls like Janet Jackson, Jody Watley and brash upstart Neneh Cherry. Fans pledge career-long allegiance to their vocal icon, following her from album to album, right or wrong, hit or miss, as she tries on and sheds musical fashions as often as she changes costumes. When it comes to R&B's prima divas - Diana Ross, Patti LaBelle, Stephanie Mills, Natalie Cole, Chaka Khan - it's definitely the singer and not the song.
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