CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE

CHRJSTGOU CONSUMER GUIDC

DEPARTMENTS

by Robert Christgau

THE CARLA BLEY BAND: "European Tour 1977" (Watt):: Although the basic concept—Kurt Weill Meets Ornette Coleman for Indiscreet Ellingtonian Frolic—is a little abstruse for my taste, this actually does reward the sort of close listening that earns so many theatrical payoffs. Perhaps amusement is the reward a little too often, however. I like a joke as well as the next fellow, but the occasional full-length emotional exposition does assuage one's conscience. (Address: 6 West 95th Street, NYC 10024.)

A-

BILL CH1NNOCK: "Badlands" (North Country):: I hope the reason^ Chinnock made his breakthrough in Maine is that no audience of city dwellers could tolerate his pervasive urban sentimentality, but I'm not taking bets. Decent melodies, humdrum Joisey arrangements, and a thick voice to go with his head. (Available from Disconnection, Box 563, NYC 10013.)

C +

LEE DORSEY: "Night People" (ABC):: This record has been growing on me so slowly for so long that I wonder whether my old Allen Toussaint fixation is acting up. Then again, why shouldn't it? Dorsey's subtle, small-scale rock 'n' roll genre statement defines songwriter-producer Toussaint better than Toussaint the performer (whom see) ever has. Every cut on the album is a minor pleasure; I'm delighted by even its silliest ("God Must Have Blessed America") and simpiest ("Can I Be The One") moments. Major credit goes to Dorsey's soft, snakey, infinitely good-humored and long-suffering vocal work, but Toussaint's touch is sublime throughout.

A-

"FM" (MCA):: An AOR wish fulfillment—Superstar Top 20. I mean, the most mechanistic radio offers an occasional ear-opener, but even though all 20 songs here are pretty good, including Foreigner's, they're as predictable as cuts on a disc, and (worse still) diminished by their proximity . This is frequency modulation at its blandest, with specific content subjugated to "sound"; it cries out for deprogramming. Typically, Steqly Dan contributes a title that elucidates this dilemma while reveling in it. Atypically, Linda Ronstadt's live "Tumbling Dice" is so passionate and revelatory that it leaps out of its context and stomps all over the Rolling Stones.

B-

"GENERATION X" (Chrysalis):: This band's notorious commitment to pop is evident mostly in surprising harmonies and song structures—musically, they're not trying to be cute. And although as singles "Your Generation," "Ready Steady Go," and "Wild Youth" never knocked my socks off, they're the nucleus of a tough, consistent, inventive album. Who said punk rock was dead?

B +

ROBERT GORDON WITH LINK WRAY: "Fresh Fish Special" (Pri vate Stock):: Gordon has perfected his craft since cutting his first album, and the follow-up is less lively as a result, because the heroic stance he's homed in on is rockabilly balladeer, which is a lot harder to approximate than '50s rock 'n' roller. After all, the credulous lucidity of Presley's slow songs is beyond mortal imitation, and how much second-hand early Twitty (or Husky) does anyone need? Even sadder, a certain sterility is beginning to infect Gordon's live show. His best moment at the Palladium came when he played rhythm guitar on a fast song that I didn't find on either LP, but I suspect that was an aberration—the ersatz teen matinee idol has already taken him over.

C

JEFFERSON STARSHIP: "Earth" (Grunt):: This is better than Spitfire (not to mention Bark) and worse than Red Octopus (not to mention Crown Of Creation). Its only ambitious lyric seems to equate skateboarding with sex with (male) hubris; its expertness conceals not schlock nor shtick nor strain of ego. At the moment, it is leading the nation in FM airplay.

C

MADLEEN KANE: "Rough Diamond" (Warner Bros.):: The perfect punk rock ash tray. Madleen looks like a Penthouse blonde with a camera-shy vulva and sings the same way— Andrea True telling little white lies. Promo copies of her LP comes with a promo booklet featuring lotsa pix (dig those leg warmers) and text in six languages, including the original Japanese: "She chooses to sing. With her own voice... The wildest words grow tame..."

D +

BOB MARLEY & THE WAILERS: "Kaya" (Island):: If this is MOR, it's MOR like good Steely Dan—MOR with a difference. Marley has sung with more apparent passion, it's true, but never more subtly, and his control of the shift in conception that began with Exodus is now absolute. He hasn't abandoned his apocalyptic vision—just found a day-to-day context for it, that's all.

B +

MINK DE VILLE: "Return To Magenta" (Capitol):: The main thing wrong with Willy DeVille is that he hasn't had a new idea since he decided he didn't like acid in 1970. Even as the songpoet of greaser nostalgia, he's got nothing to say—the most interesting writing on this record is an old David Forman tune—and the romanticism of his vocal style conjures fonder thoughts about Peter Wolf than I've enjoyed in a while.

C +

WILLIE NELSON: "Stardust" (Columbia):: I can always do without "Unchained Melody," and at times I wish he'd pick up the tempo. Basically, though, I'm real happy that this record exists, not just because Nelson can be a great interpretive singer—his "Moonlight In Vermont" is a revelation—but because he's provided me with 11 great popular songs that I've never had much efnotional access to. Standards that deserve the name—felt, deliberate, devoid of schmaltz.

A-

LOU REED: "Street Hassle" (Arista):: I know it's a little late for my two cents, but despite the strength of much of the material here, Pm still not very impressed by this album. I find its production muddled, its cynicism uninteresting, its self-reference self-serving. I don't think the racism of "I Wanna Be Black" is mitigated by "irony." And I don't think it's accidental that his current singer-with-backup-soloists lineup is Reed's most conventional live musical conception in years.

B

"THE RUTLES" (Warner Bros.):: I dream of power poppers brazen enough to apply a few rough edges to "I Must Be In Love." Could be a fave rave. Could even be fun, which is certainly preferable to limp aural satire.

C

BOZ SCAGGS: "Down Two Then Left" (Columbia):: It's taken me six months and dozens of listenings to make sure that side one is tedious and side two is quite listenable. Sometimes I wonder whether it's all worth the trouble.

B

CARLY SIMON: "Boys In The Trees" ((Elektra):: Carly generally makes a marriage seem more boring and more nasty than I've found it to be,, but not on this album, where matrimony is abandoned for more adolescent subjects. Even the two pleasedon t-cheat-oh-hubby songs—the better (and nastier) of them written by Carly's hubby—can be interpreted by her younger fans as please-don't-cheatoh-boyfriend. In a way, this is too bad—if Carly were to come up with an interesting song about marriage, someone less conventional musically than Carly & Arif might cover it and give Carole and me something new to sing along to. John and Yoko, where are you now that we need you?

C +

STATUS QUO: "Rockin' All Over The World" (Capitol):: In which Europe's premier boogie band remembers its commercial beginnings in pop psychedelia. You've heard the riffs these 12 simple rockers are based on before, and you're almost certain to enjoy hearing them again—both the filtered ensemble vocals and the limited solo space distance and depersonalize each cut into an artifact of ass-shake. Good old rock 'n' roll in yet another award-winning costume.

B +

"STIFFS LIVE" (Stiff):: Elvis the C provides a brand new ^existentialist pronunciamehto, "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself," but the real treat here is Nick Lowe's "Let's Eat," which garnished a hot-and-greasy Mitch Ryder organ pump with lyrics like "I wanna move move move move move my teeth" and "Let's buy two and get one for free." Filling out the good side are "I Knew The Bride" (Lowe's answer to "You Never Can Tell"), Larry Wallis' "Police Car" (grand theft automatic), and two cuts by Wreckless Eric that seem unlikely to be eclipsed by their studio versions. Unfortunately, Costello's live "Miracle Man" and the three Ian Dury performances were eclipsed before they came out. Marginal.

B +

TELEVISION: "Adventure" (Elektra):: Those scandalized by Marquee Moon's wimpoid tendencies are gonna try to read this one out of the movement. I agree that it's not as urgent, or as satisfying, but that's only to say that Marquee Moon was a great album while Adventure is a very good one. The difference is more a function of material than of the new album's relatively clean, calm, reflective mood. The lyrics on Marquee Moon were shot through with visionary surprises that never let up. These are comparatively songlike, their apercus concentrated in hook lines that are surrounded by more quotidian stuff. The first side is funnier, faster, more accessible, but the second side gets there—the guitar on "The Fire" is Verlaine's most gorgeous ever.

A-

ALLEN TOUSSAINT: "Motion" (Warner Bros.):: I've always found pleasure in Toussaint's hackwork and clucked sympathetically over his ambitious failures, but complaints about Jerry Wexler's conventional soul production here miss the point-■-it's Toussaint himself who aspires to conventionality. Abandoning the infectious, melody-shy chanting of his best LPs, he now sings with all the passion of James Taylor, which is probably as close to Glen Campbell as he can get. Auditioning for "Southern Nights II" are various mild concoctions—I forget which is which, but the title tune could well be with Barry Manilow at this moment—that are not offset by several mixed successes and one reminder of eccentricities past. "Optimism Blues" indeed—that Grammy nomination has given him delusions of mediocrity.

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C +

WINGS: "London Town" (Capitol):: You have to admit that Paul has Steadfastly resisted the International Pop Music Community. No Richard Perry super sessions for him—he's been loyal to his group, which has now recorded longer than the Beatles, and for me their light, unmistakable, rather capricious lyricism has finally jelled. That is, these songs aren't merely quirky; their silliness isn't aimless. Not that they're free of inanity or icky-poo. But even on the one about the fairy who'll invite us to tea, Linda adds a few harmonies that are as charming as they're meant to be, and more than half the cuts are not only attractive musically but functional verbally, ranging from "Penny Lane"-style slice-oflife to an affectionate goof on "Famous Groupies" and a reassuring "Girlfriend."

B +

Reprint courtesy of the Village Voice.