How could I have possibly missed out on these two reportedly successful CDs (A) Stage 1: How I Love You-- a Passionate Musical Experience and (B) Stage 2: The Human Heart?

Tower Records counts these two albums as among its 25 "top" bestsellers. Over 100,000 units (is that the word those ad-writers really wanted?) have been sold worldwide. Where have I been all this time? It's a chore to confront not-with-it-ness, yes. But otherwise, how know I if ignorance is really bliss?

Stage 3: True Colors arrives in the mail and I seize upon it—this lavishly decorated plea—asking on behalf of romantic same-sex love for some public notice. Ah, says I, another probably-unnecessary opportunity to become knowledgeable about a world awash in a brand of art I can do without.

I glance down, holding the promising little disc in my palm, thinking that yet another leap of faith into the gay music market has fallen into the sometimes rude precinct of a person with uncertain tastes, a taster of whom the sender knows little other than that his taste itself can spin wildly at the mere flip of a coin, landing farther afield than the sender's mind might have imagined possible.

First thought? Dink Records. The company making this little disk. The obvious temptation is to think Dinky. A negative thought that must be overcome. I must pretend, at least, that each of this CD's songs deserves a second chance.

I stare at the CD cover and its accompanying pages. Two men on the left appear to be gawking at two women on the right. One of the women—the one in front—appears to be doing more than gawking. She appears to want to boink the dude she's staring at even more dreamily than he stares at her. And he is focussed, even if his partner isn't. The other woman doesn't appear to be with anybody. She is, like that old TV program, Lost in Space.

It's like an old After Dark magazine motif, where there can be both guys and girls on the cover so that the salesperson at the store feels free to place it in public view. All Virgin Mega Stores, however, will be carrying Stage 3 Two Colors. Another odd company name, Virgin Mega. Doesn't that mean Big Virgin?

But this album, unlike its two predecessors, is for gays and lesbians, accounting for the same two women on the inside of the cover who would appear poised to 69 if it were not that one of them seems unable to make up her mind: does she want to sink her lips into that round piece of fruit she holds aloft, or does she want to get it on?

The same, strangely, may be said of the cover-interior photo of the two beautifully-muscled men. Squarejaw sits on a covered stand, as though waiting for an admirer, his genitals tastefully hidden by a cloth. He seems to be noting a somewhat desperate appeal being made by his more Boyish-faced paramour, an actual floor-sitter who offers what? More fruit, what else?

On to the musical selections! The Prologue remains, for this reviewer, the album's worst mistake. It signals, however, that while one must never expect the worst, that there's a bumpy ride ahead.

"You can reach me with your mind," says the lyric repetitively. Yuk. Well, it isn't only the repeat lyric; really, it's also the voice that's repeating it, exuding an unforgettable aura: a cigar salesman with ambitions.

The varieties of method by which the singer advises his love to use to meet up with him include mostly technological contrivances: railroads, airplanes, sailboats and even sleds. Gimmicks.

My first impression of the second cut was clear cut. I hated it. On a second listen I felt, for some weird reason, more appreciative, in spite of the terrible poetry. Terrible, yes, I convinced myself, but at least not repulsive.

The Girl from Ipanema. Brazil, Rio, the beach. I prepared to make myself enjoy this one—especially as the songtress' voice still dominated. Such a temptation became easy to resist, however, as its instrumental accompaniment then seemed to far surpass its vocal reps. The male singer, who shall remain nameless, aspires to lead those numberless hosts of the unremembered.

Let's Do It, a song Noel Coward sang to death and mildly uninteresting-forever to me, makes its palatable presence a pleasurable fact in this Stage 3: True Colors version.

Alfie: A non-descript but sometimes winning voice rises to serviceability in this one of the 1960s greatest, wisest songs.

There's damn nice flute work in this album. It defines, without meaning to, the entire genre: Fruity Flutey, thus the two fruity-fruit carriers on the cover.

Michelle: a 60s song that's untouchable for its maudlin repetitiveness:

I want you
I want you
I want you

a song particularly annoying for its insertions of French verses to impress all those people who like French phrases thrown piecemeal into songs because they're so exotic and intellectual-sounding.

If you long for Escape, pina coladas and getting caught in the rain, you'll adore the next cut, the best version going. I don't like getting caught in the rain. But I'll listen to this song and be nice.

Hands to Heaven: This exercises patience. Reminds one how all too much that goes by the name of love is inspired by dramatic schmaltz attacks.

So raise your hands to heaven and pray
That we'll be back together some day.

Or

As we move to embrace
Tears run down my face.

This is poetry so bad that only to have it quoted should be hellish enough a perpetual punishment for the guilty songwriter.

Next, from Jesus Christ Superstar we hear Everything's All Right.

Close your eyes
Close your eyes
Think of nothing tonight

Especially this CD, which has the power to suggest a line of self-help pabulum products.

All the Things You Are and I'll Be Seeing You are sung, no doubt, by a persona who might otherwise have become an ordinary housewife in Brooklyn. But no, she saw the stage lights beckoning from Manhattan and flew to a life between the footlights as a singer and the kitchen as a waitress.

I Will Never Leave You from Side Show has some unforgivable repetitive lines like:

I will never
I will never
I will never.

one of those gay message songs sung by an ensemble.

True Colors, the title song, is the last cut. There's a poignancy about this song. It's a reach in the right direction, surely, but with a kind of Tammy Faye palette at its disposal. As inside the cover there are quotes that might make perfect sense to a Self-Help for Your Relationship grad, this song has a few relationship pointers. Learn from them if you must.