From Spin (April 1989)

With _Electric Youth_, Debbie Gibson blasts away from those Tiffany comparisons and, in a quietly subversive way, sends a primal message to a frightening new demographic--the _adult_ children of baby-boomers.

That's right. School's out for Debbie. She's 18, and she likes it. It's time to say goodbye to teen vacuity and welcome the hormonal challenge of those early child-bearing years. As she sings on "Lost In Your Eyes," "I get weak/In a glance/Isn't this what's called romance?"

Hidden inside they chirpy, MIDI-ized backing tracks is an insurgent message that will have a greater emotional impact on current culture than a truckload of Tracy Chapmans. _Electric Youth_ is an album of mobilization, a good girl's guide to leaving the nest. "All those people caring/Yet you're still alone," she explains on "Who Loves Ya Baby," "I understand what's behind the feelings/I think I know you better than anyone."

Like a Rainbow Brite Pied Piper, Debbie's ready to lead the adult offspring of the love-generation "Over The Wall" to a "new world waiting." It's time to "ignore the world's advice" and get together for "a while." As for those baby-boom parents, Debbie reminds them to give their kids some room. "In the 60s young people were fighting to be heard," she writes in the liner notes, "Today, children are still struggling to voice their opinions."

What makes this message even more mutinous is that Debbie has dared to buck the obligatory use of cover material. She's pushed platinum the hard way, by writing her own songs. This admirable feat--poking a hole in the median-crossing compost heap of ageless pop fodder--makes _Electric Youth_ an important statement. By deliberately excluding covers, Debbie's dared to do what Art of Noise and Henry Kaiser couldn't--get radio play with original compositions. Instead of building her success on record sales, Debbie's banking on her publishing. In today's music biz, that's a seditious approach.

"Don't underestimate the power of a lifetime ahead," she warns critics and radio programmers on the title track. "Don't lose sight of potential mastermind/Remember when you were young." But it would be impossible for radio to ignore Debbie. Either on her own, or in conjunction with arranger-producer Fred Zarr, she rings the cash register of mass-market radio, sounding sometimes like a young Olivia Newton-John and at other moments ("Lost In Your Eyes") like a hybrid of Karen Carpenter and Barbara Streisand. No doubt, she's headed for some serious royalties. She has the potential to write that universal ballad and in a unique turn of events, people may eventually cover her material--perhaps helping to perpetuate the very trend she's fighting.

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