THE CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE
Big Star: "Radio City" (Ardent). This sounds completely unique if you don't count Beatles '65. Especially if you remember the Beatles as spare, skew, and sprung, which is hard, since they weren't. Can an album be catchy and twisted at the same time? Find out.
THE CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE
Robert Christgau
by
Big Star: "Radio City" (Ardent). This sounds completely unique if you don't count Beatles "65. Especially if you remember the Beatles as spare, skew, and sprung, which is hard, since they weren't. Can an album be catchy and twisted at the same time? Find out. B plus.
"Henry Gross" (A&M). Henry manages > to sound like one of those hebephrenic country-rock clowns — you know, the guys who make you want to run out and buy the complete works of Black Sabbath — without appearing to have a screw loose. In other words, he's really fun. Maybe he's credible because he woos Sweet Sassafrass on Eastern Parkway and dedicates one song to a fuck star friend of his. Or maybe he's just better. B plus.
Steve Grossman: "Caravan Tonight" (Mercury). If I were gay, I imagine I'd love this record, because it would be about me, which I imagine would be some kind of relief. Since I'm straight, I have to complain about the forced, husky sensitivity of the man's timbre even as I hum his melodies and commend his all-around intelligence. B.