GHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE

GHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE

by Robert Christgau ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL: “The Wheel” (Capitol)::I began by wondering what unsuspecting swing band had provided the horn riff on “Am I High?” and ended by wondering whether they’d made it up themselves, as with so much that it good on this group’s most satisfying LP since their debut'on United Artists. By now the songwriting has become almost straight; you might conceivably find “Somebody Stole His Body” on a white gospel album or “My Baby Thinks She’s a Train” on a Sun outtake. The distance that remains comes across as healthy, good-humored respect, especially for banality, which with this band often turns into dumb eloquence, as on the love song “I Can’t Handle It Now.” Inspirational Verse: “In French Baton Rouge might mean red stick/But to me it means broken heart.” A-

THE BAND “Islands” (Capitol):: Even true believers admit that this sounds like a listless farewell to old habits—-recording as a group on Capitol, for instance. The best song is about the baby Jesus and almost made me gag first time I heard it; the secondbest is about a traveling evangelist and strikes a familiar note; and the thirdbest is a remake that sounds like. one.

C +

MICHAEL FRANKS: “Sleeping Gypsy” (Warner Bros.)::I don’t trust these sambas to drowse by, not even when the lyrics wake me up, but I find myself playing them. Inspirational Verse: “I hear from my ex/On the back of my checks.” B

“Peter Gabriel” (Atco)::Even when he was Genesis, Gabriel seemed smarter than your average art-rocker. The music was mannered, but there was substance beneath its intricacy; however received the lyrical ideas, they were easier to verify empirically than evocations of spaceships on Atlantis. This solo album seems a lot smarter than that, although every time I delve beneath its challenging textures to decipher a line or two I come up a little short. Worth considering. B +

PHILIP GLASS: “North Star” (Virgin)::Rock ears take to this avantgarde composer because he understands electronic sound in a melodic context and loves rhythm, a rhythm achieved—like the hypnotic/mystical mood of the music as a whole—not through percussion but through mechanical repetitions cunningly modified. There is natural drama here, but Glass never indulges it, which is why he appeals to Eno’s side of the “progressive” spectrum rather than to Keith Emerson’s. What Eno fans may find hard to take—and what I find doubly admirable—is that this music refuses to fade into the background; it’s rich, bright, and demanding despite its austerity. The intrigued should definitely take a chance. A-

DARYL HALL & JOHN OATES: “Bigger Than Both off Us” (RCA Victor)::Now they’re rich boys, and they’ve gone too far, ’cause they don’t know what matters anyway. C + LOLEATTA HOLLOWAY: “Loleatta” (Gold Mind)::Those craving a big-voiced R&B singer should probably grab this rough-edged Philadelphiatype production. Those in control of their urges should note that nothing else on the album matches the lead cuts on each side, “Hit and Run” and “Ripped Off.” B-

BONNIE KOLOC: “Close Up” (Epic)::I disapprove of songs about silver stallions, I’m sick of “We Had It All,” and I suspect that Koloc’s own “I’ll Still Be Loving You” requires more

camouflage than her Marxophone (?) coda, but I really like this record anyway. Its intelligence's modest and unmistakable, and the two Lil Green compositions that kick off side two actually vie with the originals and would probably be welcome even if they didn’t. But the clincher is that there are just some voices you like—I find myself unable to resist someone who sings the way Lily Tomlin has always wished she could. B +

KRAFTWERK: ‘Trans-Europe Express” (Capitol)::No, I have not shorted out or fallen in love with a cyborg. No, I do not like Kraftwerk’s previous craft-work, Radio-Activity, which consists mostly of bleeps although I did think “Autobahn” was kinda cute. This has the same simpleminded air of mock-serious fascination with melody and repetition. Plus textural effects that sound like parodies by some cosmic schoolboy on every lush synthesizer surge that’s ever stuck in your gullet—yet also work the way those surges are supposed to work.

Plus cover and sleeve photos suitable for framing. A -

NILS LOFGREN: “I Came To Dance” (A&M)::In which the aging prodigy flirts with hackdom and almost scores. He still makes killer licks sound easy, although the melodies are drying up fast, and despite an ominous piece of Inspirational Verse—“I’ll play guitar all night and day, just don’t ask me to think”—and a road song that sounds like the first of a series, there’s more ambitious lyric-writing here than on either of the two previous A&M LPs.

Thing is, except for “Happy Ending * Kids” and a sly ditty about eating pussy, the lyrics don’t work; whether “Jealous Gun” is straight anti-hunting propaganda or an allegory about who knows what, its language is stillborn and its pretensions annoying. Worst cut: a version of the Stones’ “Happy” in which Keith’s “always burned a hole in my pants” is transformed, for no discernible reason, into “always had a heart in my pants.” You think maybe Nils was trying to divert our attention from the music? C

DIANA MARCOVITZ: “Joie de Vivre!** (Kama Sutra)::This woman suffers from Don Rickies syndrome— when she gets serious, watch out for flying horseshit. But “The Colorado of Your Mind” (“Go shove it up, 'the toochas of your mind!”) and “Drop Dead” are nasty and hilarious, the kind of songs that are adjudged “offensive to our listeners” by sensitive (male) program directors. Martin Mull should have a tenth of her esprit. B-

MARY McCASLIN: “Prairie in the Sky** (Philo)::I consider it just that the most convincing cowboy-based music in years should come from a woman who starts off with this request: “Pass me by if you’re only passing through.” The voice is high and lonesome, not given to gush; the instrumentation is built around an acoustic guitar, but accommodates a single French horn, a drumset, or both, when appropriate; the songs—both borrowed and original—are a lesson to L.A. cowboys everywhere from an L. A. cowgirl who makes her records in Vermont. (Available from Disconnection, Box 544, New York City 10009.)

B+

DELBERT McCLINTON: “Love Rustler** (ABC)::McClinton’s cult sentimentalizes bar music. The fact that bars encourage a relatively innocent functionality—pleasing a small, concrete audience rather than a large, abstract one—doesn’t necessarily make them any more “authentic” than studios. McClinton is essentially a male Texas version of Linda Ronstadt—a strong-voiced, versatile singer who doesn’t seem like an especially interesting person. This means not only that he’s at the mercy of songwriters and arrangements, but that he isn’t likely to have very distinctive taste in either. The title cut is a classic and several of the remakes are worth hearing more than twice, but as a whole this album is as pleasant and forgettable as a Friday night out. B-

KATE & ANNA McGARRIGLE: “Dancer with Bruised Knees** (Warner Bros.)::Not as tuneful as some could wish, but even a bright melody must strike artists this subtle as unseemly, rather obvious. Rarely has the homely been rendered with such delicate sophistication; these women spend 60 or 70 grand trying to make a studio approximate a living room, or maybe a church basement, on production numbers, and succeed! They are prim, droll, and sexy all at once, with a fondness for family life as it is actually lived—a repository of strength, surely, but also a repository of horrors —that is reflected in their version of folk instrumentation. Rather than on-theroad guitars (with their attendant corn about the wimmin at home) they rely on accordion, piano, organ; once when they need a drum they get the kind of oompah beat you still hear in parades. It took me a month and a half, but I now prefer this to the first. A

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PINK FLOYD: “Animals” (Colum bia)::This has its share of obvious moments. But I can only assume that those who accuse this band of repetitiousness and cynicism are stuck in such a cynical rut themselves that a piece of well-constructed political program music—how did we used to say it?—puts them uptight. Lyrically, ugly, and rousing, all in the right places. B + BONNIE RAITT: "Sweet Forgiveness” (Warner Bros.)::I was put off at first by the rough textures here, just as I was by the slick textures of Home Plate, which eventually became my most played album of 1975. But this is basically a rock and roll album; it needs to be rough, right down to a vocal style grittier than she’s ever dared before. The songs are a little flat—there’s no “Good Enough” or “Sweet and Shiny Eyes” this time. But anyone who induces me to listen to entire lyrics by Jackson Browne and Karla Bonoff and dance to Eric Kaz has got to be doing some kind of job. A-

D1ANA ROSS: "An Evening with Diana Ross” (Motown)::The band could be Doc Severinson’s and the rushed-tempo medleys are maddening, but the vivacity in this live doubleLP is palpable. I haven’t gotten such a good idea of what the fuss is about since Lady Sings the Blues. B-

LEO SAYER: "Endless Flight” (Warner Bros.)::In the great tradition of Elton John, Sayer abandons all pretensions midcareer, except on the title cut, his tribute to early Elton (with Nigel Olsson providing the thud). As always, the problem is that Leo isn’t as talented as Elton. “I Think We Fell in Love Too Fast” is a natural for the young divorcee crowd and the falsetto send-up on “You Make Me Fell Like Dancing” great fun, but too many of these catchy tunes aren’t catchy enough. Too bad— we could use a shot of middle-period Elton around now. B-

SID SELVIDGE: ‘The Cold of the Morning” (Peabody)::Selvidge’s voice is so rich it’s a curse, especially since it’s combined with a goodhumored grasp of blues tradition—all he has to do is release the notes and people tell him he’s a genius. On this evidence, Selvidge is only a craftsman. His gifts as a lyricist are limited, and his facility as a guitarist is neither intense nor original enough to sustain a whole album instrumentally; worse, he doesn’t seem to have much to say with his talent. But the two lead cuts and Selvidge’s own “Frank’s Tune” are special enough to excite some hope. B BILLY SWAN: "Four” (Columbia):: Last year Swan made the finest rockabilly album of the current revival, •songful and manic and ebulliently inadequate, and it didn’t sell shit. Now someone seems to have taught him a lesson—this time we get horns and strings that show up his voice and a song about California that is no less drab than most of the others. For everybody’s sake, let’s hope this doesn’t sell shit either. C