CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE

CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE

DEPARTMENTS

Robert Christgau

Paranoid new wavers may suspect that I’m getting soft on super groups, but that won’t make the new albums by the Jam and Gary Numan more fun than those by ZZ Top and Led Zeppelin, not to mention more meaningful (or more fun) than the new one by Gil Scott-Heron. And_I have my doubts about Elvis Costello too—but then, I always have.

LEONARD COHEN: "Recent Songs” (Columbia) :: Cohen’s arrangements are even more detailed and surprising than John Lissauer’s, and Jennifer Wames is the most valuable backup singer since Emmylou Harris. “The Traitor” is a minor masterpiece. And in general this record adumbrates courtly love in the swingers’ era with more ironic intelligence' than you would have thought possible. Or necessary, unfortunately. Cohen’s gift for elementary hummables seems to deteriorate as his writing evolves from the conversational toward the allegorical. . Irony or no irony, “rages of fragrance” and “rags , of remorse” sound suspiciously like bad poetry even when they’re sung, and that’s not how if s supposed to work. B STEVE FORBERT: "Jackrabbit Slim” (Nemporer):: John Simon’s settings go every tvhich way—from Muscle Shoals to Kingston, from country to folk to r&b—but always seem to come up pop. Then again what else do you do with Forbert? He’s as all-American as the Band, but beyond that catchy young heartland-soulful voice he has no musical identity; his lyrics are omniverously observant, but beyond an attractive all-purpose compassion they never reveal a point of view either. Steve Forbert Reporting, that’s all. Which means you have to care about him as much as he does—“Make It All So Real” is as shameless as the suffering-artist theme gets—to care about his songs. And the voice doesn’t do that for me. B-

IRON CITY HOUSEROCKERS: “Love’s So Tough” (MCA) :: “Turn It Up” is one of those self-transcending cliches—a song about rock and roll escape that reveals how the truism became one. Most of the others are honorable cliches—working-class angst played for tragedy rather than irony or analysis in the great tradition of B. Springsteen. Or is it T. Lizzy? B

THE JAM: “Setting Sons” (Polydor) :: Likable lads, as always, and improving themselves, too. The Music has gained destiny and power, and they do okay with the social commentary— nice to see some empathy for doomed middle-class plodders like “Smithers-Jories” instead of the usual contempt, and “The Eton Rifles” and “Little Boy Soldiers” should end those nasty rumors about their politics. On the other hand, some of this is pretty dumb (“Wasteland,” ugh), and overarrangement (not so much extra instruments as dramatic vocal shifts) is no way to disguise thin melody. B4*

LED ZEPPELIN: “In Through the Out Door” (Swan Song) :: The tuneful synthesizer pomp on side two confirms my long-held belief that this is a real good art-rock band, and their title for the first 10 minutes or sq, “Carouselambra,” suggests that they find this as humorous as I do. a The lollapalooza hooks on the first side confirms the world’s long-held belief that this is a real good hard rock band. Lax in the lyrics department, as usual, but their best since Houses of the Ho/y. B +

GARY NUMAN: “The Pleasure Principle” (Atco) :: Once again, metal machine music goes easy-listening, But last time he was singing aboutfurtive sex, policemen, and isolation, whil,e this time he’s singing about robots, engineers, and isolation. In such a slight artist, these things make all the difference. B

TEDDY PENDERGRASS: “Teddy Live! Coast to Coast” (Philadelphia International) :: The three live sides include no new tunes and) none from his first album. Many women scream, and a few sing into his hand-held mike. Both uptempo tunes on the studio side are pretty good, but they’re interspersed with an exceedingly distracting interview conducted by one Mimi Brown. MB: “How do you like your eggs?” TP: /Hard.” MB: “Out of your three albums-which is your favorite?” TP: “I’d say my first.” C

ESTHER PHILLIPS: “Here’s Esther... Are You Ready” (Mercury) :: Proving her resilience once again, this 30-year-woman skates over “Philadelphia Freedom” with a lot more cod than Aretha managed on “The Weight,” explores her blues roots, with a Ruby & the Romantics cover, and gets good material out of what looks suspiciously like a songwriting stable. Special plaudits to producer Harvey Mason, who reminds us that disco horns and strings are a lot more interesting than Creed Taylor’s. Personal favorite: the dancable get-down parody, “Oo OopOoOop.” B +

PINK FLOYD: “The WaU”^€olumbia) ::For a concept album about the alienation of a rock .star, this isn’t bad—unlikely to arouse much pity or envy, anyway. The music is all right, too—kitschy minimal maximalism with sound effects and speech fragments. But the story is confused, “mother” and “modern life” make unconvincing villains, and if the recontextualization of “up against the wall” is intended ironically,

I don’t get it. B-

IGGY POP: Soldier (Arista) :: This is sheer product—hard uptempo sessions with the pickup band that featured Glen Matlock and Ivan Krai.. But the formula serves him well; he can apparently generate satirical energy over a clean rock bottom at will. Play this a few limes and in two years you’ll still recall five songs when you t putiton again: “Dog Food,” “I Snub You,” “loco o Mosquito,” “I’m A Conservative,” “Play It Safe.” And all the others will sound pretty good. B +

PRINCE (Warner Bros.) :: This boy is going to be a big star, and he deserves it—in addition to his pop-funk-disco-rock fusion he’s got a great line.

“I want to come inside you” is good enough, but (in a different song) the simple “I’m physically attracted to you” sets new standards of “naive,” winning candor. The vulnerable teen-macho falsetto idea is pretty good too. But he does leave something to be desired in the depth-of-feeling department—you know, soul. B +

JOHN PRINE: “Pink Cadillac” (Asylum;:: Weird. With production by Knox and Jerry (Son of Sam) Phillips, Prine has never rocked harder; But he’s slurring his vocals like some tooth-less cartoon bluesman emulating an Elvis throwaway—related to the Sun sound, I guess, but perversely. Are the new songs any good? Hard to tell. t B-

RAMONES: "End of the Century” (Sire) :: Sad. The best cut is “I’m Affected” (note double-edged title; the second best is a Ronettes remake (Joey outsinfcjs Andy Kim); the third best is a ballad about their manager (now departed). They also remake two of their own songs—“Judy Isa Punk” (good sequel) and “Rock ‘n’ Roll High School” (unnecessary Spectorization) —and one of the Heartbreakers’ (inferior). Arid take on the Sports and Joe Jackson with a song about the radio that would be the worst they’d evefr written were it not for “This Ain’t Havana” and “High Risk Insurance,” in which the group’s reactionary political instincts finally escape that invisible ironic shield (bet Johnny provided worse-thanBarry-McGuire rhymes like “on your way to life’s promotion/You hinder it with emotion”). Phil Spector doesn’t make that'much difference; his 1 guitar overdubs are worse than his orchestrations, and they’re not uncute. But this band sounds tired. B +

BRENDA RUSSELL (Horizon) :: If it’s pop you crave, slow down a minute and check this out—eight love songs, all in sensual-to-pert medium tempos, all sweetly hooky. Russell’s singing is breathy, soulish, and trickier than it seems, and though her lyrics are sometimes quite clumsy, they always sound felt and particular. Even the string arrangements avoid the vague and saccharine, especially those by t)avid Wolfert, who produced Dusty Springfield’s best album of the 70’s. The material isn’t as powerful, but this reminds me more than a little of Dusty’s best album of the 60’s and that’s high praise. B+ GIL SCOTT-HERON / BRIAN JACKSON: “1980” (Arista) :: Having already written more good anti-nuke songs than the rest of MUSE put together, they add a third on their best album ever. The melodies are only functional but the rhythms are seductive and the singing is warm. And then there’s the words. Subjects include compromise (necessary), “surviving” (cop-out), aliens (surviving), the shah (kill him), the road (long), and the future (here). A-

SLY & THE FAMILY STONE: “Back on the Right Track” (Warner Bros.):: This really is Sly’s best since Fresh, but the title does give it away, because Sly isn’t going to progress by trying to recapture the past. Fresh was a great finale because it gathered five years of energy and innovation into an almost'atumnal synthesis. There are cuts here—“The Same Thing,” “Shine It On”—that might fit into that synthesis. But there aren’t any that could define it, much less suggest a new one. Time: 27:07. B

DIONNE WARWICK: Dionne (Arista) :: The voice is still magic—1 even get off on her overdubbed backups—but who wants to listen to it through all this mush? Wait till the collaboration with Barry Manilow dries up, after two or three albums. Betcha Clive tries reuniting her with Bacharach-David around then. And around then, they just might be in the mood to do it right. Maybe. ^ , C +

HANK WILLIAMS, JR.: “Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound” (Elektra) :: At times his son-of-an-outlaw obsession is worse than shtick, but here he does justice to the formula. Two candid songs about women tell you more about his sexism than he knows himself, two others explain why he’s in that mood, the covers from Gregg Allman and George Jones define his parameters, and “The Conversation”—with Waylon Guess Who, about Guess Who, Sr.—doesn’t make you gag once. B +

TONY WILLIAMS: “The Joy of Flying” (Columbia) :: For months I’ve had the nagging suspicion that this special-guests showcase might be that oddity of oddities, a good fusion album. But it’s, only an interesting one, featuring a duet with Cecil Taylor that has nothing to do with fusion, and including among its snappy complexities a snappy tune that is actually fun—the lead cut, Jan Hammer’s “Going Far.” Rest assured that Hammer redeems himself tout de suite on George Benson’s “Hip Skip,” which likq most of what remains is snappy and complex and cloying high-tech in the great fusion tradition. But Ronnie Montrose’s recorded-live arena fusillades —unlike Benson’s articulate tripe—are also fun. And not only is Williams equally comfortable with Cecil and snappy and heavy metal, he’s worth listening to no matter what’s in the foreground. B* ZZ TOP: “Deguello” (Warner Bros.):: These guys got off the road for real—sounds as if they spent all three years playing the blues on their front porch. The strident arena technique is gone, every song gives back a verbal phrase or two to make up for the musical ones it appropriates, and to vary the trio format they not only learned how to play horns but figured out where to put them. I’ve heard a shitload of white blues albums in the wake of Belushi & Aykroyd. This is the best by miles. A-

Reprint courtesy of The Village Voice.