From the Star-Ledger (July 19, 1995)

THAT GIBSON GIRL
Queen of teen unplugs away
By Jenifer Braun

There were people crouched on top of bookshelves, squatting on the floor between the feet of security guards and sitting on each other's shoulders.

About 300 strong, they've clawed their way into the music room at "Borders Books, Music and Espresso" store at the Garden State Plaza mall in Paramus.

After a loud and sweaty half-hour of pushing and wiggling to get close to the piano at the center of the room, a hush falls over the crowd.

Security guards force a path through the crowd and suddenly, as the assemblage gasps in unison, there appears a face, one that is familiar and yet at the same time almost forgotten by many... Debbie Gibson!

"Hi, everybody!" carols the singer, as she glides up to the piano and the crowd cheers, claps and stamps their feet.

Gibson, the teen queen of 80's pop music, is back-with a new album, a new label (SBK) and an image designed to erase memories of her boppy, "Electric Youth" past.

In support of the album "Think With Your Heart," Gibson has gone on a promotional tour, performing acoustic sets at "Borders" bookstores across the nation before heading to Southeast Asia for a similar tour that will continue next month.

Acoustic Debbie Gibson?

It sounds as strange as electric Dylan once did, but the young singer/songwriter/producer who hit the top of the charts in the late 1980's with cheery, heavily synthesized bubble-gum pop tunes like "Out of the Blue" and "Lost in Your Eyes," has transformed herself into a reflective, even soulful pianist and balladeer, a la Carole King.

"My very first album was very honest, but after that, the next couple of albums were really tailored to radio, there weren't me," Gibson said in an interview after the show.

"I'm much more interested in traditional pop music, and I've developed this I-don't-care-what's-happening-now attitude," she said.

And her fans' reaction to the new Debbie?

"They love it; they say it's their favorite album," Gibson insisted.

Indeed, at her Paramus appearance-the only New Jersey stop on this promotional tour-fans clamored for her old hits, but when she flubbed the lyrics to one of her new songs, "Too Fancy," audience members who had already purchased the recently released album called out the words to help her along.

She also delihted fans by performing several tunes from her Broadway career, including "On My Own," from "Les Miserables" and an a capella, apparently off-the-cuff rendition of "Look at Me, I'm Sandra D. (Reprise)," which was requested by a fan in the audience.

Since her last album, "Anything is Possible," was released in 1990, Gibson-signed to a major label at 14, popular by 16 and chart-topper at 19-has had trouble commanding the huge audiences who flocked to her concerts in her teen years. She seemed to be past her prime at the tender age of 20.

So instead of recording another album, Gibson went in for musical theater, first playing Eponine in Broadway's "Les Miserables," and then creating the role of Sandra D. in the popular revival of "Grease," playing in the show for the first nine months of its original London run.

"People said to me, 'Oh what a great career move,' Gibson said. "But really I'd done musical theater a lot when I was a kid, so it was more a return to my roots. 'Eponine' was a role I'd always wanted to play," she said.

It was while she was in London that most of the songs on her fourth album were written.

"When I was there I wrote constantly, and so many had accumulated that I just felt it was time to sing and record my own music," Gibson said.

And although a suburban shopping mall is a long way from performing in the Meadowlands Arena-as Gibson did in 1989-or even on Broadway, Gibson insists this "mall tour" was her choice.

"We hate to call it a mall tour; it's really a 'Border' tour. 'Borders' just felt like the perfect place to reach people interested in hearing my music, because it turns out that the fans who have stuck with me are more coffee-bar people than bar-bar people," Gibson said.

Gibson said that when she returns from Asia, she hopes to "get a band together" and launch a full-scale concert tour before the end of the year.

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