Now Is the Hour is the tenth
studio album by American singer
Jennifer Rush (and 11th album overall when counting Heidi album in 1979). It was first released by
Ariola Records on March 5, 2010. Among the
songwriters that contributed to the project were Swedish
music producerJörgen Elofsson, British singer
Natasha Bedingfield,[1] and American
country songwriter
Sharon Vaughn.[2] Rush's first studio album since 1998, it peaked at number 21 on the
German Albums Chart. The first single was the ballad "Before the Dawn."[3] As of 2024, it remains her most recent studio album despite sporadic recordings and live performances.
AllMusic editor Jon O'Brien found that Now Is the Hour "retains the epic power balladry of her mid-'80s heyday while also pursuing a previously unexplored dance-pop direction similar to
Cher's fifty-something disco diva re-invention a decade earlier [...] For an artist so synonymous with the impassioned big-voiced vocal ballad, it's a surprise that she comes unstuck when attempting to tread the path of her signature hit, "
The Power of Love," as the likes of "Before the Dawn," "Windows," and "Still" may provide the chance to showcase her impressive and slightly operatic tones, but they are so utterly unmemorable that you wish she'd had the confidence to just stick with her newfound uptempo leanings instead. Now Is the Hour might not exactly be worth a 12-year wait, but take away the perfunctory torch songs and it is a respectable comeback that suggests her one-hit wonder status is a rather unjust state of affairs."[4]
