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**That Bad Eartha**
★★★★☆

By the time Eartha Kitt unleashed "That Bad Eartha" in 1989, the sultry chanteuse had already lived several lifetimes worth of artistic triumph and personal turbulence. Having conquered cabaret stages, Broadway, and Hollywood in the 1950s before being effectively blacklisted for her outspoken criticism of the Vietnam War at a White House luncheon in 1968, Kitt spent much of the 1970s and early 1980s rebuilding her career from European exile. This album, arriving as she approached her seventh decade, finds the legendary performer in full command of her powers – part confession, part celebration, and entirely uncompromising.

The late 1980s saw Kitt experiencing something of a renaissance. Her scene-stealing turn as Catwoman in the Batman television series had introduced her to a new generation, while her Tony-nominated performance in the Broadway revival of "Timbuktu!" reminded critics why she'd been dubbed the "most exciting woman in the world" decades earlier. "That Bad Eartha" captures this moment of artistic renewal, presenting Kitt as both seasoned survivor and eternal provocateur.

Musically, the album straddles multiple worlds with the confidence of an artist who helped define them. Kitt's approach here is quintessentially postmodern cabaret – jazz-inflected but unafraid to flirt with contemporary R&B production, worldly sophisticated yet street-smart. Producer Hal Willner, known for his eclectic tribute albums, provides the perfect foil for Kitt's restless creativity, crafting arrangements that feel both timeless and urgently contemporary.

The album opens with the title track, a swaggering declaration of independence that finds Kitt purring and growling over a bed of synthesized funk. "I'm that bad Eartha," she declares, and after everything she'd endured – the poverty of her South Carolina childhood, the racism of 1950s America, the political persecution that nearly destroyed her career – who could argue? It's a statement of survival as much as seduction, delivered with the kind of vocal acrobatics that made her famous: those trademark rolled R's, the feline hisses, the ability to make a simple phrase sound like both a threat and a promise.

"I Love Men" stands as perhaps the album's most perfectly realized moment, a witty catalog of masculine archetypes delivered with Kitt's signature blend of desire and disdain. Over a slinky jazz arrangement, she celebrates the "strong, silent type" and the "intellectual" with equal fervor, her voice dancing between vulnerability and control. It's classic Kitt – simultaneously empowering and subversive, refusing to be categorized or contained.

The ballads reveal different facets of her artistry. "If I Can't Take It with Me When I Go" finds her contemplating mortality with characteristic defiance, while her interpretation of "Under the Bridges of Paris" showcases the Continental sophistication she'd cultivated during her years abroad. These slower moments allow space for the full range of her instrument – that voice that could shift from whisper to roar, from childlike innocence to worldly wisdom, sometimes within a single phrase.

"Champagne Taste" serves as the album's most overtly political moment, a meditation on desire and class that feels particularly pointed coming from a woman who'd grown up in poverty but moved among society's elite. Kitt's delivery is masterful, finding the humor and pain in wanting more than the world seems willing to give.

The production occasionally shows its late-1980s origins – some synthesizer choices feel dated now – but Kitt's performances transcend any temporal limitations. Her voice, while perhaps not as technically pristine as in her 1950s heyday, had gained new layers of texture and meaning. Every crack and rasp tells a story; every purr carries decades of experience.

"That Bad Eartha" ultimately stands as a testament to artistic resilience and reinvention. In an industry that typically discards women of a certain age, Kitt refused to disappear, instead crafting an album that acknowledged her past while pointing toward her future. She would continue performing until shortly before her death in 2008, but this album captures a particular moment of artistic synthesis – the point where experience transforms into wisdom, where survival becomes celebration.

For those who knew Kitt only as a cultural icon or television villain, "That Bad Eartha" reveals the artist at her core: uncompromising, intelligent, and utterly singular. In a career full of memorable moments, it stands as proof that some voices only grow