Laura Nyro [invented] something new: soft rock, which seems to be one part modern folk-rock and two parts Broadway-Hollywood schmaltz with a dash of Forties urban blues and gospel. I am not one of her worshipers. I think the reason so many are genuflecting before her can be traced to the taste for blandness Americans have in them as a result of pop music's having festered so long in the mush of the Thirties, Forties, and Fifties and, perhaps, a nostalgia for the earlier sounds which are an element in her music. Still, a high intelligence marks the work of Nyro; the symbolism in her lyrics is cleanly and professionally rendered, and her melodies have a fluidity that no amount of soul could produce without help from the brain. There is nothing surprising about the political views Nyro espouses; she is a pop-culture booster to out-Melanie Melanie—but...