Tiffany

SHE'S ALL GROWN UP

Fromer teenybopper Tiffany doesn't look like a girl anymore, and she doesn't sound like one, either. The 30-year-old singer of such hits as I Think We're Alone Now and Could've Been has said bye-bye to bubble-gum pop. The Color of Silence, her first domestic album in a decade, showcases a more mature, rock-influenced groove. ''I'm thankful for the success of my early records, but I remember thinking, When am I allowed to get back to where I envisioned myself?'' she says. ''I was on tour for two years in the late Eighties and noticed that music was changing, becoming more R&B and dance oriented. I come from a country background, but my dream was to be a rock singer. I used to twirl around in my room and pretend to be Stevie Nicks. It became very frustrating for me as a young adult because people saw me as the sweet and innocent girl next door. I knew my peers were growing up--girls wanted to look sexier, and I didn't know how to make that transition. I had personal problems with my family and management, so I decided to bow out gracefully and go home for a while.''

Tiffany used the time to start her own family and mend the relationship with her mother, whom she'd sued for emancipation when she was a teenager. ''My mom and I are incredibly close now,'' she says. ''She's much more accepting of me as a person since I became a mother.'' Tiffany lives in a Los Angeles suburb with her nine-year-old son, Elijah, and her husband, makeup artist Bulmaro ''Junior'' Garcia. ''Elijah is a great kid and student, and I want him to have stability and a normal life,'' she says. ''He sees pictures and video-tapes of me, but I don't know if he really puts it together--I'm still just Mom. I would never push him into the music business or acting. But if he wanted to do it, I couldn't stop him. It's in your blood. As a child, I was always putting on shows in my backyard. My friends would come over and we'd line up all our teddy bears and perform.'' After Tiffany's appearance on Star Search, MCA signed her, and the southern California native embarked on the shopping-mall tour that made her a star. ''I thought it was a great idea, because when I was 11 the mall was where my girlfriends and I hung out,'' she says. ''We'd take 10 bucks, split fries and a soda, and walk around and look at guys. When I first started performing there, it was awkward because I'd go on at noon and a lot of kids weren't out of school yet. I'd get onstage in front of a lot of older ladies and start singing, and they would get pissed! They were like, 'Why are you doing this? Who are you? You're too loud!' A couple of times I broke down in tears, but then radio stations started playing I Think We're Alone Now and I really worked it. More and more of my peers started to come, and I'd talk to everybody and sign each album. No one was ever turned away.''

After a decade of soul searching and a brief relocation to Nashville for inspiration, Tiffany released The Color of Silence, which finds her more in the company of Sheryl Crow and Alanis Morissette than teen queens Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears. Tiffany and Debbie Gibson were the Christina and Britney of their time, but now the former rivals are friends who get together to chat about today's pop landscape. ''I'm not interested in resurrecting Tiffany from the past,'' she says. ''I feel confident standing on my own two feet as an adult, a woman, a mother and a musician.'' She wrote or co-wrote seven of the album's bluesy rock songs, including the ballad If Only, a heartfelt tribute to her longtime bodyguard Frank D'Amato, who died of cancer at 34. ''He became like a big brother,'' she says. ''I think he was sent to watch over me. God gives you little blessings in life, and he was one of them. It feels so strange not to have him here now.'' Other songs, such as Piss U Off and Open My Eyes, sound as if Tiffany is washing that teen queen right out of her hair. ''I wrote about things I've seen and felt over the past 10 years,'' she says. ''One song is about a bad, abusive relationship I was in before I met my husband. You realize that you have chipped away all of your character--the way you look, the way you talk, the way you act, you've even changed your friends--and this person still has a problem with you, and you don't know why you need the relationship so badly. One day you just wake up and say, 'I'm done. It's not even about me--you have a problem.''' On the track Silence, she reflects on the simpler days, singing, ''Everything was different when I was 17/The world was so much brighter/Now I finally found the truth/Of what they hid from me/That world was so much kinder.''

Spend a short time with Tiffany and her disarming frankness makes you feel like you've known her for years. ''As you grow up, you see people going through things, and I am definitely more well rounded,'' she says. ''I tried things and fell on my face, but I'm comfortable with who I am now. Success to me means mainly as a person--having good people around me, being a great mom, being accepted. I would love to sell millions of records, but I don't look at my music and say, 'Well, it didn't sell like this other artist's did, so there must be something wrong with it.' I know The Color of Silence is a solid album, and for what I have to offer right now, that's my best. I'm hoping to get better, but I know I gave 110 percent. I don't sweat at night. I'm trying to have fun and enjoy my career--just promote and enjoy the album. At the end of the day I want to say, 'I feel pretty good. Let's all bounce together.'''