CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE

CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE

by

Robert Christgau

BOOTSY’S RUBBER BAND: “This Boot Is Made For Fonk-N” (Warner Bros.):: Bootsy sounds like a kiddie-show host at the end of his tether—trotting out sound effects, Steve Martin imitations, desperate appeals to deejays, anything he can think of Except a good riff. C +

RAY CHARLES: “Ain’t It So” (Atlantic):: Pro forma Charles here—jazzed up Berlin and Mercer-Alien, schlocked-up “Just Because,” uninspired Manilow and McDill, original Jimmy Lewis, “Drift Away” (eat your heart out, Dobie), and “Some Enchanted Evening” (eat your heart out, Ezio). In other words, a pretty damn good record. B +

THE EAGLES: “The Long Ran” (Asylum):: This isn’t as country-rock as you might expect— these are pros who adapt to the times, and they make the music tough. I actually enjoy maybe half of these songs until I come into contact with the smug, sentimental woman-haters who are doing the singing. I mean, these guys think punks are cynical and anti-life? Guys who put down “the king of Hollywood” because his dick isn’t as big as John David Souther1 s? C +

MARIANNE FAITHFULL: “Broken English” (Island):: A punk-disco fusion so uncompromised it will probably scare away anyone who doesn’t already admire both genres. Not a perfect record, I admit. The lyrics a^e maddeningly offhand and inconsistent—“Why d’ya do what you said?/Why d’ya let her suck your cock?” is a great beginning, but “Ahh do me a favor/Don’t put me in the dark” is a terrible rhyme (and not the only one, either). Still, 1 find Faithfull worth listening to even when she’s sloppy, like Dylan when he’s good. The music’s harshest account of a woman in the world. A-

FLEETWOOD MAC: “Task” (Warner Bros.) :: A million bucks is what I call obsessive production, but for once it means something. This is like reggae, or Eno—not only don’t Lindsey Buckingham’s swelling edges and dynamic separations get in the way of the music, they’re inextricable from the music, or maybe they are the music. The passionate dissociation of the mix is entirely appropriate to an ensemble in which the three principals have all but disappeared (vocajly) from each other’s work. But only Buckingham is attuned enough to get exciting music out of a sound so spare and subtle it reveals the limits of Christine McVie’s simplicity and shows Stevie Nicks up for the mooncalf she’s always been. Also, it doesn’t make for very good background noise. B +

FOREIGNER: “Head Games” (Atlantic):: This isn’t as sodden as you might expect—these are pros who adapt to the times, and they speed the music up. I actually enjoy a few of these songs until I come into contact with the smug, stupid woman-haters who do the singing. I mean, these guys think punks are cynical and anti-life? Guys who complain that the world is all madness and lies and then rhyme “science” and “appliance” without intending a joke? C

ARETHA FRANKLIN: “La Diva” (Atlantic):: Blame what’s wrong with this record on the late trite Van McCoy, one of the most tasteless arrangers ever to produce an LF. What saves it is that McCoy didn’t control half of these songs— arrangements by Richard Gibbs and Arthur Jenkins (rhythm only) and Zulema Cusseaux and Skip Scarborough (rhythm plus orchestration) provide frequent relief. Aretha contributes two sisterly originals, which are really fine, and one loverly original, which isn’t. Because McCoy keeps intruding, she never gets a flow going. But there haven’t been so many good cuts on one of her albums since 1974. B

FUNKADEUC: “Unde Jam Wants You” (Warner Bros.):: This is fairly wonderful through the first cut on side two, but in a fairly redundant way. Bemie WorreD’s high synthesizer vamps sometimes seem like annoying cliches these days, and not even Philippe Wynne can provide the marginal variety that puts good groove music over the top—maybe because he sounds like a high synthesizer himself. B +

PETER GREEN: “fa> The Skies” (Sail):: For a supposed resident of Cloud Cuckoo Land, Fleetwood Mac’s original hitmaker is doing all right— this solo comeback is a lot solder than number three from Bob Welch (featuring “Future Games” as blast from the past), number three from Danny Kirwan (blonde on the cover), or number one from Jereply Spencer (now apparently unborn again, though six out of seven songs pivot on the word “love” and the eternal one is graced with syndrums). Green’s new music goes all the way back to Then Play On, but it’s a lot more confident—simple guitar excursions with a Latin lilt, like Carlos Santana with a sense of form (or limits). And it makes for very good background noise. B +

MILLIE JACKSQN: “Live And Uncensor* ed” (Poly dor):: Millie was made for live a bums, as the rap-and-belt format of her studio work suggests, and the drama here, with its raunchy audience interplay, is at least as natural as Anything she’s ever devised for vinyl. Her timing keeps getting sharper, her voice keeps getting bigger, the songs amount to a best-of, and you also get a monologue about soap operas and the “Phuck U Symphony.” Certainly her best since the Caught Up diptych, and probably definitive. , A*

JEFFERSON STARSHIP: “Freedom At Point Zero” (Grunt):: Hawkwind-goes-commerciar leads off one side, Foreigner-hurrieshome the other; both cuts are catchy, both sexist tripe. The rest of the album is a familiar muddle of fixations: space travel, good-time music, the deluge, the possession of pretty girls. Personal to Mickey Thomas: ain’t nobody gonna boogie on the moons of Saturn. C-

RICHARD LLOYD: “Alchemy” (Elektra):: Lloyd really has his pop down, and this record never fails to cheer me when it comes on— the songwriting and guitar textures are consistently tuneful and affecting. I don’t mind that he always sings off-key, either—part of the charm of his pop is how loose it is. But the voice is so wacked-out that even if you’d never seen Lloyd lurching around a stage or matching magic with Tom Verlaine you’d sense that where for the Shoes or the Beat teen romance is a formal stricture, for him it’s an evasion—he’s just not telling us what he knows. B +

BETTE MIDLER: “Thighs And Whispers” (Atlantic):: The songs are pretty good, and when you listen up they get better, their apparent flatness undercut by little x touches of drama, comedy, or musicianship. But the songs aren’t, that good. And they don’t get that much better. C +

PARLIAMENT: “GloryhaUastoopid” (Casablanca) :: As its stoopidest (“Theme From The Black Hole,” which features a “toast to the boogie” that goes—naturally—“Bottoms up!”) this makes Motor-Booty Affair sound like The Ring Of The Niebelungenlied. But at its dumbest (“Party People,” apparently a sincere title) it makes Motor-Booty Affair sound , like “Sex Machine” or “Get Off Your Ass and Jam ” And there’s too much filler. Stoopid can be1 fun, George— even inspirational. But mainly you sound overworked, and that’s a drag for everybody. B +

LOU REED: “The Bells” (Arista):: Lou is as sarcastic as ever—the lead cut is called “Stupid Man,” and in a typically acid rhyme he links “capricious” and “death wish.” But due in part to the music’s jazzy edge and warmly traditional rock ’n’ roll base (special thanks to Marty Fogel on saxophone) he also sounds...well-rounded, more than on Street Hassle. The jokes seem generous, the bitterness empathetic, the pain outfront, the tenderness more than a fleeting mood. And the cuts that don’t work—there are at least three or four—seem like thoughtful experiments, or simple failures, rather than throwaways. I haven’t found him so likable since The Velvet Underground. B +

“THE ROSE" (Atlantic):: The usual soundtrack alibis don’t apply to a Paul Rothchild production utilizing studio-certified musicians and a dozen tunesmiths hacking out rock songs to order. In fact, all that distinguishes this coflection of nine Bette Midler performances from, say, your usual backup-goes-sofo bid is that it was recorded live—for “feel,” I guess. Although it is true that except for the off-color “Love Me With A Feeling” the high points are the monologue on sideoneandaprolongedfanfare. C

THE WHO: “The Kkle Are Alright” (MCA) :: I prefer the originals, but this isn’t a bad sampler. All of the songs are good, many are classics and die relative roughness of performance has its attractions even if the relative roughness of sound doesn’t (most of them are from live dates never intended for vinyl). One thing I’d like to know, though—if he’s so “vital,” how come 12 of the 15 Townshend compositions are from the 60’s? B

STEVIE WONDER: “Stevie Wonder’s Journey Through The Secret Life Of Plants” (Tamla):: Like most great popular composers, Wonder is an appalling “serious” one. With their one-world instrumental flourishes and other sound effects, the presumably synthesized “orchestral” passages that dominate the first two sides are like bad (!) David Amram at their best (!) and some justifiably anonymous Hollywood hack at their worst. (Major exception: “Race Babbling,” especially when it glances a presumably synthesized horn riff off presumably synthesized voices and ostinatos.) And only two of the four songs on side three, which defenders of this album admire, are worthy of Key Of Life. But on side four, Wonder's indomitable openheartedness finally breaks through the mawk. “A Seed’s A Star and Tree Medley” is even.more foolish philosophically than most of the rest of the album, but its elan makes Stevie’s vitalism palpable, so that even the presumably synthesized orchestral passages which wrap things up sound ardently schmaltzy instead of depressingly schlocky. Still, nexttimel hope he alms lower. B-

WRECKLESS ERIC: “The Whole Wide World” (Stiff):: Like the Only Ones’ Special View, Eric’s U.S. debut sifts the duds out of two years worth of U.K. singles and LPs to arrive at a stylistically unified compilation album—though the 13 tracks list seven different producers, they cohere, because Eric hasn’t had time to outgrow his own impulses. The voice mewls and scratches like a cat in a broom closet, but the melodies get out, and the lyrics are a lot less hapless than they pretend to be: beneath the girl-shy fool lurks an ironic paranoid of devasting subtlety. A-

NEIL YOUNG: “Live Rest” (Reprise):: John Piccarefla thinks this is the great Neil Young album, Greil Marcus thinks it’s a waste, and they’re both right. The two discs are probably more impressive cut for cut than Decade, but without offering one song Young’s fans don’t already own. I prefer the studio versions of the acoustic stuff on side one for their intimacy and touch. But I’m sure I’ll play the knock-down finale—“Like A Hurricane,” “Hey Hey, My My,” and “Tonight’s The Night,” all in their wildest (and best) recorded interpretations—whenever I want to hear Neil rock out. A-

Reprint courtesy The Village Voice