LOU REED

The Blue Mask

(RCA)

“Things go from bad to weird,” Lou Reed observes in “Underneath the Bottle,” thus astutely summing up his latest career turn, The Blue Mask. Old Lou-watchers insist that this new album is his so-long-Clivehello-greatness move, and since it’s a vast improvement over Growing Up In Public, no wonder they’re relieved. Lou seems to take it seriously, too, although he’s got a lot on his mind what with his continuing marriage to Sylvia (“the prettiest girl in the world,” remember?) and simultaneously living up to and living down a decade of interim personas, not to mention the Velvet Underground. Far as 1 can tell, The Blue Mask is Reed’s most wholehearted effort to play it straight—in more ways than one— since anyone cared. But that just makes you wonder: does he have any idea what he’s saying? Or what he wants to say?

Face it, Lou Reed is literate, Paris Review and all. He even, as he explains in promo material, wrote out the lyrics for The Blue Mask rather than just ranting in the studio. More than that, he’s literary, writing from various real and assumed points of view and letting listeners make connections. Do that with The Blue Mask and you end up with a sputtering short circuit.

On the supposedly sincere end, we get Lou Reed the family man, confirmed heterosexual (“Only a woman can love a man,” he insists in “Heavenly Arms”), “Average Guy” (with, however, an enlarged liver and a 98.2 temperature; here’s hoping RCA has a good staff medic), and no junkie—“The Heroine” dresses in “virgin white,” but she does come across as a female. Reed puts the good-guy songs at the beginning and end of the album, probably for emphasis (but maybe so you can skip over ’em). He sings them with what may be heartfelt passion, too, although it’s hard to hear him bellowing “Sylvee-a-yuh” a la Englebert Humperdinck, vibrato and all, without begging for irony. Worse, the well-adjusted songs have lyrics so ham-fisted they’d hardly convince a Reagan voter (then again...). “Our house is very beautiful at night,” Lou informs us, not because he’s Graham Nash in New Jersey, but because he and Sylvia whipped out the Ouija Board one night and found they were haunted by Lou’s old hero, Delmore Schwartz. But if Delmore’s post-mortem poetry chops had been up to snuff, he might’ve helped Lou re-think lines like “Heavenly Arms bring a kiss to your ear”—hold the cauliflower.

Meanwhile, the invested-persona songs—the ones Lou wouldn’t identify with for anything, no siree, he’s married and happy, really— those are the ones with the insights and the life. The lowlife, of course: “Underneath the Bottle” is sung by an alcoholic who’s forgotten where he last fell down; “Waves Of Fear” is about psychotic paralysis; and “The Gun” is a new street hassle, in which a sicko with a gun forces a man to watch as he does something to his wife (hmmm...). Then there’s the title cut, about a masochist so far gone he has himself ritually castrated. It’s creepy city, just like Reed’s pre-Public stuff, and so what if he named the album after its bloodiest cut? Lou’s just writing again, he doesn’t mean anything by it.

The reason everyone’s paying attention, instead of still wishing the murk would clear from the tougher Street Hassle and the goofier The Bells, is that Reed has crossbred every style he’s ever tried, using just two guitars, bass and drums, live in the studio. He gets the clear-cut stomp of Rock ’n’ Roll Animal (“Wave Of Fear”) and the barrenness of Transformer (“The Heroine”) and the club-footed swing of The Bells (“Average Guy”) and the trance-out of Street Hassle (“The Day John Kennedy Died”) and the uneasy folk-rock of 1969 or Coney Island Baby (“The Gun”) and the swagger of Loaded (“Underneath The Bottle”) and the noise of White Light/White Heat (“The Blue Mask”), yet the band doesn’t exactly copy any of those models— they just keep them in mind while floating their own tangents. Between Fernando Saunders’ JacoJr. fretless foreground bass, Doane Perry’s thump-with-cymbal-options drumming and Robert Quine’s lithe, savage and/or quizzical guitar leads, plus Lou’s playalong rhythm, the band is always solid, always improvising—if Joni Mitchell wanted her Weather Report/Pat Metheny combo to be able to rock out, she’d hire Lou’s crew instead. Hell, Quine can put all of Metheny’s modal-sinuosity tricks while simultaneously administering his own electroshock.

The Blue Mask doesn’t quite add up to greatness. Like the Stones, Lou pulls together the band on his latest effort and sounds stronger than he has in years, maybe hoping that no one will notice the muddle in his head. And maybe he doesn’t notice either. In “The Day John Kennedy Died,” one of the sincere numbers (1 think), Reed sets up an elaborate double negative, dreaming of all the things that are just as impossible as forgetting JFK’s death: “I dreamed I wasn’t gross or base, a criminal on the take...I dreamed that I was young and smart and it was not a waste.” Hey, it’s not too late—or is it? My Ouija Board’s still waiting for the man.

FLESHTONES

Roman Gods

(I.R.S.)

Good news for the anti-fashion crowd; this record isn’t. Necessarily fashionable, that is. Oh yeah, the Fleshtones once (almost) had their imoment in the trendy sun. Tr\e ’Tones bopped outta their native Queens in that sizzling winter of 1976-77, to fling their 60’s-punkadelic revivalisms into that year’s blinding N.Y. Punk Explosion fallout hot on the heels of the hotshot of Blondie, the Ramones, Television, and all the other soon-to-bemajor-household-word N.Y. bands.

But somehow the Fleshtones fell into a more protracted rock ’n’ roll adolescence than did their immediate predecessors, a long, wakeful teendream that ironically enough protected them from the subsequent dissipation of N.Y.’s New Wave hopes. Here it is 1982 already, with some camp followers calling Blondie the old guard Blondie were deemed rebels against, just a few short years ago, and amid all the punk wreckage, the Fleshtones are proud...no, uh, better make that “nervously pleased,” to announce the release of their first (blush!) album, Roman Gods. (Actually, the Fleshtones recorded their first “first album” in 1978, for Marty Thau’s Red S(ar Records, but the label couldn’t afford to release it, until so much time passed it had become obsolete as a reflection of the band, and it was shelved. Personnel changes, temporary breakups, and other goofy luck continued to confound the Fleshtones’ ’77ish ambitions,, even as they managed to place two cuts on the Red Star 2X5 sampler, and to do their own Up-Front EP forl.R.S., both in 1980. Okay, end of history lesson.)

It’s now winter’s day 1982, and founding Fleshtones Peter Zaremba (vocals), Keith Streng (guitar), and jan Marek Pakulski (bass) have joined together on Roman Gods with hot-convert ’Tones Bill Milhizer (drums) and Gordon Spaeth (alto & harp), to celebrate a collective passion for the proto-psychedelic punkrock of magic 1966, in their explorations and extensions of that precise season’s sound. A hugely pregnant moment of rock ’n’ roll, quickly aborted and obliterated by Sgt. Pepper/Hashberry and all the other masscult hysterias of 1967.

Spare you the deadly nightshade of nostalgia-rock? Okay, fair enough, I could drop names of ultra-’66 bands like the Shadows of Knight, the Standells, the Blues Magoos, all of whom have obviously inspired the Fleshtones’ own creations, but that wouldn’t begin to tell you how absurdly up-to-date Roman Gods really sounds. Especially in harsh downtown 1982, a pop scene so dismal with fake “progressives” like Christopher Cross, that practically any other music,, even gritty, ancient rockabilly 45’s, sounds immensely more modern.

Like on Roman Gods’ “I’ve Gotta Change My Life” (bloozy, squishyorgan sike-a-dylic) or “The World Has Changed” (echoes of bunnymen hopping down the road), both featuring spermy Zaremba vocals ripe with the adolescent situational paranoia (never goes out of style) of early soul-teatifier bash, with a refrain—‘“Every girl talk about what she wants now”—we almost certainly wouldn’t have heard from the original ’66 punkers. Or in “Stop Fooling Around” (Blues Magooz Erectus, wahwah harmonica, realtickedoff guitar.) Or the fuzzbasscurlycued “The Dreg,” or the ‘Tm living in the world/But I don’t know where I belong” urgency of “Shadow-line,” organic revivals of two earlier Fleshtones signature tunes.

Funny thing is, even while Roman Gods makes my feet come, 1 see in N. Y. Rocker’s review of the LP that it’s supposedly more restrained than the Fleshtones’ fabulously raucous live shows, but since I haven’t yet had the pleasure of the latter, I’m gonna be (more than) satisfied with the stereobound Roman Gods for now. All I know is that this album checked into the $6 motel of my pituitary gland last week, and it hadn’t skipped out yet!

Richard Riegel

JANIS JOPLIN

Farewell Song

(Columbia)

With everyone still grave-robbing the Doors’ rotting myth, I hate to champion any music made by a dead person. But this Janis record is a real gift from the gods, the polar opposite of such nail clippings any of the eight million “Jimi Hendrix Plays The C Scale” records. There are no “alternate live versions” of dead horses like “Ball And Chain” or “Try”. Instead we get nine NEVER BEFORE RELEASED IN ANY FORM songs with a consumer break-down of just one total dog (meant as a throwaway anyway), two OK blues toss-offs, five brilliant Joplin scream-outs and one utterly divine moment which catches Janis in a slightly different light than we’ve ever seen her before.

What you may be scratching your head about is why these recordings suddenly scrambled into albumhood just now. (The last Joplin output was the movie soundtrack back in ’75). Well, a quick dial to producer Elliot Mazer revealed that all this stuff was supposed to come out just after 1972’s Joplin In Concert, but the sound was so bad that Janis’ estate nixed it. Just this year the go-ahead was finally given for a salvage job and, aided by the wonders of recent electronic advancements, Mazer claims he was able to clean it all up to its present, thrillingly raw state. If the tapes used to sound as moldy as Mazer says then he deserves a hearty round of backslapping. Janis’s voice yells right in your face and the bands (all three from the stages of Joplin’s career) are no more rough and rude than they ought to be. In “Magic Of Love” (with Big Brother) there’s one "of those great psychedelic ash can exploding guitar solos, much like the blitz in “Down On Me” from Joplin In Concert. A lot of people used to say BB couldn’t play too well, but Country Joe McDonald, in his liner notes, fingers Brother as a great garage band and that definitely hits it right on the snout. (It does piss me off, though, the way McDonald implies a writeoff of almost everything Janis did post-Big Brother. If anything, Pearl proved she could clean up her act and 'not sell out. McDonald tells some neat anecdotes about the old hippie daze, although I’m not sure about his placing Joplin, were she around today, “somewhere between Pat Benatar and Nina Hagen” (closer to Uta Hagan, I’d say.) In “Misery,” her vocal is absolutely revelatory, especially when it cracks on the line “lately I’ve been sleeping alone.” And in the climax of “Farewell Song” she pushes herself far beyond what you thought would be her breaking point. You may know the key words to all these songs before you hear them (“lonely,” “try,” “cry,” “want,” “hold,” “need”)—but her delivery makes them seem spontaneous every time; like she’s reminding us of something we’ve always been aware of but have never completly accepted. And, just so you don’t think all is loneliness, there’s a track like “Raise Your Hand”—one of those rousing 60’s crowd-jobs— plus three similarly light, though less worthy tracks (which end both sides so you can easily skip over them).

The one song that above all makes the album mandatory for every human being to own, though, is the gorgeous “One Night Stand”—the slickest piece here, backed by the Butterfield Blues Band (boasting a perfectly melancholy harmonica). Here Janis may still end up a woman left lonely, but at least for the moment she’s got the upper hand, explaining to someone else that the relationship is nothing worth holding on to. The scenario forces her to propagate the pain that’s so often come to her in her songs, and when she sings, “Don’t you know you’re nothing more than a one night stand?” the empathy is awesome. It’s a.moment that could only come from the greatest kinds of singers. In case you’ve forgotten, Janis Joplin was one.

Jim Farber

THE TEARDROP EXPLODES

Wilder

(Mercury)

“I hate war. I have seen war. I have seen war on the land and sea. I have seen blood running on the street. I have seen small children, starving.. I hate war. ”

First time I heard those words was on Volume Two by the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, specifically on “Suppose They Give A War And No One Comes,” as part of a monologue delivered by bandleader Bob Markley. The second time I heard those words was in high school, watching a World War II documentary, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt was saying them. At that moment, three whole years later, I finally got the joke.

So here it is, 13 years on and I’m getting it again, though in a different context. This time it’s Julian Cope doing the recycling, and neither of us could be happier. Wilder is Teardrop Explodes’ second album, and it’s a disorganized mess so obviously filled with both love and bullshit it might as well be Bob Markley one more time—great in spite of itself.

Arthur Lee, Tim Buckley, John Cale, Scott Walker and the Zombies figure prominently in Julian Cope’s interviews, and they do here, too. Among other people. Basically, you’ll like Wilder if you like 1) Forever Changes’ homs. 2) “Stephanie Knows Who’”s title, 3) “My Flash On You” and “Hey Joe,” 4) Gary Usher, 5) “In The Arena” by the WCPAEB and “Birds In My Tree” by the Strawberry Alarm Clock, 6) Odesse^r & Oracle (and where’s the cover of the Zombies’ “Butcher’s Tale” that Wilder’s British inner sleeve promises?) , 7) Tomorrow, 8) the Nice’s Thought Of Emerlist Davjack, 9) “Letter To Hermione” by David Bowie, 10) “As Tears Go By” and the sitar part in “Monterey” and 11) anything involving Jacques Brel. You get the idea.

Sure, Cope is sloppy as hell— “Allusions and illusions of loving you” is an actual lyric here, and he’d probably be telling us about snot caking on his pants if somebody hadn’t already beaten him to it. But I don’t care if it’s been done before and neither should you. Teardrop Explodes’ music is unfashionably hopeful, a celebration of happy endings and everything Joy Division unwittingly shut the door on three years ago. Which is one of the reasons I like it so much.

Julian Cope operates within the same territories previously explored by Kevin Ayers and Syd Barrett, his contemporaries being maybe Robyn Hitchcock, Henry Badowski and two or three others. Prediction; he’ll pursue his “vision,” and if it coincides with the public’s, fine. But no big deal. He’ll put out lots of albums, some crammed with gems, most with crap, and the mixture will be part of his elusive charm; it’s the tradition. The same muse that whispered in the ear of Arthur Lee, inspired the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, and fueled the cowbell of the Strawberry Alarm Clock, now speaks to Julian Cope. And if his music ends up smelling like patchouli oil, that’ll be his problem.

When I saw Teardrop Explodes live last year, Cope sang “The Great Dominions” and had problems during the quiet parts—the audience was talking too much. “I wrote this because I think it’s a very beautiful song,” he told us, “I SAID, I WROTE THIS BECAUSE I THINK IT’S A BEAUTIFUL SONG ... AND IT DOESN’T NEED TALKING.” No one listened. Bob Markley said it best on the back of Volume Two: “No one censored us. We got to say everything we wanted to say, in the way we wanted to say it.” No one cared then, Bob, and Julian, no one cares now, but the fact that you both want to bring it up sure is interesting.

Dave DiMartino

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Amarcord Nino Rota

(Hannibal)

Federico Fellini may or may not be one of the greatest directors of all time—many people think he is, a few have their doubts. One especially articulate dissenting view can be found in David Thomson’s scathing entry for the director in his excellent “A Biographical Dictionary Of Film.” It’s a more complete condemnation than the usual chiding of an unruly talent that Fellini frequently receives, concluding that the director “has seldom done more than arrange elaborate tableaux for the camera or listen to idle chatter from his characters...(he is) a halfbaked, play-acting pessimist, with no capacity for tragedy”—pretty strong stuff, and almost convincing. Fortunately, it matters little if you view Fellini’s flick as moving humanist fables or mechanically slick manipulations of surfacey emotions, as self-indulgent sentimental claptrap or master-trips of wiggy colors and far out faces, it’s all incidental film chat when assessing the music on this album, a collection of jazzy interpretations of various scores the late Nina Rota wrote for Fellini’s films...the music stands on its own.

Amarcord means “I remember” and this motley remembrance of composer Rota focuses on his 29year collaboration with Fellini (Rota scored all of Fellini’s films, from his solo directional debut The White Sheik (’51) thru Orchestra Rehearsal (’78), the collaboration ended finally by the composer’s death in ’79 (even) though he achieved his greatest popularity with two nonFellini scores—the ones for the Godfather saga and the Zeffirelli rendering of Romeo And Juliet (’68). A wise move, since it’s the Fellini music, with its use of quaint musical forms and its fusion of the bittersweet with the comic, that remains the most fascinating. Rota’s themes here are simple, sad, and sometimes silly, Sound sickeningly sentimental? Suffice to say there’s a saving soupcon of self-parody. And “s”’s aside, the music’s appeal lies in its tempered romanticism, its tongue-in-cheek world weariness narrowly avioding the cute, too expansive to be cloying, occasionally playful and, uh, subsequently solemn (sorry).

Producer Hal Willner has gathered for this tribute a particularly piquant cast of jazz musicians along witth a special guest cameo appearance by Chris Stein and Debbie Harry (and don’t buy the record for that reason—it’s only a 2V2 minute spot, a snippet from La Dolce Vita (’60) and, despite some sterling bell pings by Charles Rocket, it’s one of the album’s dozier patches). The album opens and closes with solo pieces from pianist Jaki Byard, accurately described by Peter Keepnews in the liners as “one of the best kept secrets in jazz”—a double injustice, considering that jazz itself is one of this country’s best kept secrets* (also contributing admirable informative liner notes are Leonard TV Movies Maltin, producer Willner, and Fed himself). Byard’s interpretations of the themes from Amarcord (’73) and La Strada (’54) sweep from impressionistic to stride and set the tone for the rest of the album. The first of the two highlights between Byard’s appearances is provided by the Carla Bley Band’s llVe minutes of 8V2 (’63). Rota and Bley are revealed here to be kindred spirits— his looney circus marches, melodramatic waltzes and pseudo sabre dances could conceivably have been written by Bley—and her arrangement, with improvisational contributions kept to a minimum, deftly weaves the various themes into a logical whole. The other standout cut of the album consists of a medley of themes from four different films, played by a sextet arranged and conducted by William Fischer. The ensemble gets a loosely swinging groove going and, after a characteristic looting and pillaging solo by tenor saxist George Adams and some tacky key changes, concludes with an ironic high kicking riff.

Also noteworthy are Steve Lacey’s soprano sax and gong art song version of Roma (’72), Bill Frisell’s overdubbed guitars conjuring Juliet Of The Spirits (’65), and the David Amram Quintet doing Satyricon (’69), less Reminiscent of decadent Rome than a circa ’59 Beatnik coffeehouse flute and bongo orgy.

Producer Willner has promised a sequel to this album, one that will include non-Fellini Rota—until then, or until somebody does a Bernard Herrman anthology with Pere Ubu, Captain Beef heart, and Abba, this will suffice as the most serendipitous filmusic album currently available.

Richard C. Walls

NICK LOWE

Nick The Knife

(Columbia)

I’m what you’d call an on and off Nick Lowe fan. I liked him fine when he was in Brinsley Schwarz surrendering to the rhythm and questioning the dwindling respect for peace, love, etc. I adored him when he finally soloed with that fun-seeker’s paradise, Pure Pop For Now People.

But let’s face it, even the good Brinsley albums had their fair share of uneven moments and Pure Pop’s follow-up, Labour Of Lust, was strictly averageville (glowing exception: the loopy sentimental slobberings of “Cruel To Be Kind”). And yoq wouldn’t have to twist my toes too hard to get me to admit that Seconds Of Pleasure by the (sob!) now-defunct Rockpile (so sad to see good friends go bad) was the most underwhelming supergroup debut since Blind Faith (exceptional exception: “Heart”).

Enough aesthetic archaeology; let’s bring it up to modern times. Here comes big Nick with solo album #3 and you can prepare to lower any and all exceptions—it’s just another letdown. Nick The Knife is nothing but new-butfamiliar throwaways —many of them likeable, some highly listenable, a couple are even worth carrying around in your head for a day or two, but mainly it comes to you straight from the pumps, filler-full all the way.

“Burning” ’s the most enjoyable thing here with its rambunctious whackabout drumming (it’s either Terry Williams or Bobby Irwin; I say Terry) and a completely absorbing hypertense stop-and-go piano break (five people get keyboard credit so it could be anyone from Carlene Carter to Paul Carrack). Of course the inflammatory amatory theme was recently done quite nicely by BOC; it’s a tip-off to the rerun fever that plagues this record.

In fact the next time I partake in a borrowing vs. lending debate I’m gonna ask Lowe along to plead my case for the former. “Too Many Teardrops” (with whiny Carlene back-up), “Queen Of Sheba,” and “My Heart Hurts” are all cloned from the same lackadaisical chugalug groove that gave us such previous pleasant N.L. forgettables as “When I Write The Book.” “Ba Doom” has an excruciatingly bad doo-wop hook. The heartache precipitation that makes “Raining Raining” noise was done definitively by the Cascades two decades ago. And “Heart,” unlike “Cruel To Be Kind,” is a truly disastrous self-remake with sluggish reggae riddims and feebly whispered warblings sadly replacing backflip dynamics and Billy Bremner’s terminally exultant vocalizing.

There’s also uneventful guitar lifts all over the place from “Let Me Kiss Ya” (a brief “Me and Julio” flourish) to “Zulu Kiss” (a little bit of “They Called It Rock”) to “Stick It Where The Sun Don’t Shine” (Creedence’s. “Green River” filtered through Mickey Jupp’s “You’ll Never Get Me Up In One Of Those”). Plus two outta the three sound like they were dug up from under Rockpile’s rubble.

It’s like good ole T.S. Eliot almost used to say—we need more professional thievery and less petty larceny. Unfortunately, Nick. The Knife has much too much of the latter.

Craig Zeller

ALTERED IMAGES

Happy Birthday

(Portrait/Epic)

Altered Images’ debut album is an unforeseen delight: a surprise party where the kids play whatever games strike their fancies. During the din of celebration, the identity of the band remains obscured, and the clues are scant indeed: five group members with first names only (one, a female called Clare), all very young adults (perhaps adolescents); their home: Glasgow; Scotland; “Happy Birthday,” their single, certified silver in England primarily via the dance clubs; their first 45: “Dead Pop Stars.”

None of these bare facts, however, will prepare you for the immediate allure of Altered Images. You are constantly being teased by squawks, squeals, and squirrelly giggles from the lips of Clare, a singer who can certainly be added to the growing list of first-rate female voices that have emerged over the past several years—Poly Styrene of X-ray Spex, Robin Lane, Lora Logic, Lesley Woods of the Au Pairs, Debora Iyall of Romeo Void, Vanes,sa Ellison of Pylon, Exene of X, Chrissie Hynde, the Slits, the Raincoats, Delta 5, Liliput, the Go-Go’s, and so many, many more. To call what Clare does singing, though, would be stretching the point; instead, she transforms her voice, its plain everyday quality, into a series of high-pitched, high-spirited sound effects. At times the results are genuinely haunting—on “A Day’s Wait,” for example, she sound like a chorus of children, or rather, like the same child overdubbed a hundred times. Upon occasion, as on “Leave Me Alone, ’’ she is not so frolicsome, her voice defiant, expressed in grunts and confused tears—but from a distance, like the voice of an insignificant creature shaking its tiny fist.

The band’s music is basic hardedged English punk, falling somewhere between Joy Division/New Order and the Sex Pistols (Sometimes a glockenspiel—or is it a xylophone?—lightens the punk gloom.). As Clare’s fragile and mysterious presence enters the crossfire of clashing musicians, what emerges, particularly on “Idols” and the title cut, is a tension so tough that it threatens to break through the carnival atmosphere of the surface. Here the accomplishment is not unlike that of the Go-Go’s, except somewhat in reverse. Just as the Go-Go’s brought experience to the sound of joy— testing themselves against the pop formula and its history—so have Altered Images brought their innocence to the sound of dread.

The framework may seem odd but the songs are ferocious despite it all. Even more unusual, the only historical reference which immediately comes to mind is Savage Rose, a long-forgotten but stillcherished Danish art-rock group of the early 70’s fronted by Annisette, a woman almost otherworldly in voice and substance—and Clare’s distinct forebear. But such a connection, as convenient as it is, does not convey the power of Altered Images’ own music: the implicit sadism of “Real Toys,” the garbled messages on “Faithless,” the creepy-crawly beauty of “Insects.”

“Chirp, chirp, chirp,” sings a bird faintly during the fade on “Beckoning Strings;” “peep, peep, peep,” echoes Clare impishly. The mystery remains intact.

Robert A. Hull

ABBA

The Visitors

(Atlantic)

Ya just gotta take a stand now and again, and epithets be damned. So call me insane, call me peculiar, call me Sven (call me next week, Mom), I don’t care. I think Abba is the greatest pop band in the history of the universe, which happens to be their philosophical and musical stomping ground. Oh, Benny, Bjorn, Agnetha, and Frida (much catchier names than John, Paul, George, and Ringo) do have more than a tenuous connection to the comparatively microscopic world of 12” and 7” bits of vinyl. Just invert your lens and you’ll realize that, after all, Abba relates to a very specific brand of catchy, harmony-gilded 60’s pop: say, the Chiffons, geometrically extended to the nth degree. Listen to any Abba album; it’s pure soul on ice (for which phrase I don’t think I’d better thank Eldridge Cleaver). Yeah, they’re the ultimate hook machine. Benny grid Bjorn press the magic buttoris once a year and out come some absurdly excessive pop tunes, a couple of disco epiphanies, and one or two slower numbers that define unbeatable melancholia. But detached, hollow, nothing but unfeeling, synthesized manipulation? You’re just not paying attention. Remember., these guys and gals were brought up on endless winters and glaring summers, the intensity of which can lead to a distanced clarity of perception. And then, their English isn’t what you’d call idiomatic. It necessarily suggests self-conscious precision aforethought, but imagine how detached it would seem in Swedish.

Remote? For pop music, sure. But definitely not removed. Abba care, Abba feel, Abba are socially concerned. In fact, Abba take things so seriously and react to life and love with such overwhelming intensity that Ingmar Bergman would do well to sign them on for a soundtrack. Neuroses and angst direct Benny’s and Bjorn’s songs and are never hidden from view with shame. On their current album, The Visitors, paranoia results from their ever-aware acknowledgement of the impending apocalypse (“Soldiers”) or from an unspecified, deep-rooted psychotic condition (“The Visitors,” subtitled “Crackin’ Up”). Images of aging, autumn, night, shadows—in other words, doom—abound. Desperation arises as the past, present, and future collide: In “Slipping Through My Fingers,” a mother longs for a past that hasn’t occurred yet, as she watches her daughter grow up. And in “When All Is Said And Done,” a seemingly healthy attempt not to regret the passage of time and romance, cheerfulness stands as a mask for giving in to the inevitable: “Standing calmly/At the crossroads/No desire to run/ There’s no hurry/Anymore/When all is said and done.”

The Visitors is, however, not at all oppressive. The group’s keening harmonies counterbalance the existential point of view. Under layers of drums and synthesizers, “One Of Us” is revealed as a touching, realistic pop lament—the mandolins are a clue. And while “The Visitors” confronts insanity, it is, at the same time, ingeniously bouncy, a major disco delight. Abba catch you by hook(s), but never by crook. Ya gotta know which magic buttons to push.

Jim Feldman

HUEY LEWIS AND THE NEWS Picture This

(Chrysalis)

Ho hum, you might say. One more slick-surfaced pop rock band with hooks to spare (many made out of spare parts), sax breaks, high-pitched harmonies and lyrics about boy-girl matings and misunderstandings . From Marin County, CA, no less, where they serve orange wedges and avocado slices with burgers. Pass, you might say, and when the first Huey Lewis and the News album was issued in 1980, you did. Too bad for you, I might say, because that debut, with its Boomtown Rats pose on the front cover and Beach Boys pose on the back, has more than a few punchy, clever tracks. You can probably locate Huey Lewis and the News for $2.49 or less at your local “used” (ahem) record shoppe, and are advised to do as much.

Huey Lewis, despite a name that calls to mind Donald Duck’s nephews, is a singer of gruff expressiveness and a writer with a talent for simplicity that isn’t simpleminded. Picture This could use considerably more kick—the (self) production tends to go flat, and the arrangements are constructed to get as much musical punch out of the songs as they could—but it’s still a good example of Regular Guy Rock. RGR, a burgeoning subgenre that I’ve been exploring and cataloging for a future thesis, uses tight song structure and earnest male vocals to express commonplace romantic emotion, and Lewis has come up with an RGR point of view that’s particularly ingratiating.

The moping that goes on throughout Picture This, the almost total befuddlement that Lewis feels in his dealings with the opposite sex, might not be as effective if it weren’t for the Lewis personality. There’s something of thfe L’il Abner galoot about him, a strapping guy with a voice that tries to convey soul as well as soul-searching, and that makes his confusion more interesting than most girl-troubled cousins of Buddy Holly. This modern world and the females who populate it drive him to distraction: “Is everybody crazy,” he asks, “or is it me?” What ever happened to true love? What’s going on here? One second he’s convinced that this is the real thing (the currently chart-bulleting “Do You Believe In Love,” written by Robert John Lange). The next, it’s adios, bozo. The LF starts off with a show of false bravado on “Change Of Heart” (“Do you think that I’ll shoot myself/When you tell me that it’s over?”), but the underlying tone is, at least I won’t have to worry about her unpredictable nonsense any more. It picks up where the first album left off: “If you really love me you’ll let me/if you love me you’ll let me go.”

Lewis has some hip credentials— his band Clover (produced by the aforementioned Lange) backed Elvis Costello on My Aim Is True, he wrote and played harmonica on Dave Edmunds’ “Bad Is Bad,” he’s played live with Rockpile and surig a capella oldies with Rickie Lee Jones—but his News aren’t likely to be taken very seriously. I have the suspicion that Lewis’ baffled attitude would be more critically fashionable were it clothed in more modern threads. But Lewis and the News persis in playing it straight, almost 50c-beer-bar-band straight, within a variety of styles.

Picture This includes moves from late Motown (Jackson 5 back-up vocals) and early Beatles, white reggae, finger-popping soul, working class Geilsian puffing on the unfortunate “Working For A Livin’’ (what hast Studs Turkel wrought?), an obligatory oldie (“Buzz Buzz Buzz,” which ends the album on an optimistic note from a simpler era: “I hope someday you’ll be mine”). “The Only One” approximates the scene-setting melodramatics of Thin Lizzy, and “Giving It All Up For Love” was penned by Lizzy’s Phil Lynott. Diversity and conservatism, combined with a Mill Valley mailing address, can be deterrents to both easy comprehension and popularity, as The Moby Grape Story teaches us.

Despite some formulaic pop approaches to matters of the heart, the best songs on Picture This, as on the debut, are viewed from a fresh, realistic perspective. When you come out of an intense affair with your ears ringing and your head spinning, “What about all the things that you meant to me?” is an anything but trivial question. Huey Lewis and the. News combine sentiment with snap in a way that places them a significant notch above your anonymous, ordinary AOR fodder.

Mitchell Cohen

ORCHESTRAL

MANOEUVRES IN THE DARK

Architecture & Morality

(Dindisc/Virgin/Epic)

Was it really just two years ago that the British press was 'hailing OMD as one of the new generation of electronic garage bands? And was it really true that their peppy debut single, “Electricity,” was recorded before they could afford synthesizers? Listening to this album, it’s easy to doubt even recent history—much of it sounds like it could have been recorded in a church and features not only synthesizers but mellotrons, not to mention the most portentous title I’ve seen this year. Strange what success can do for you.

And these guys are becoming successful. In England, they’ve had an impressive string of hit 45’s and LPs and over here, their following is beginning to move inland from the coasts. I had ’em pegged to make it when the news came down that Gary Numan wasn’t touring any more, because somebody’s gotta fill that gap and Kraftwerk aren’t quite sexy enough or pop enough to do it. These guys have an excellent feel for pop melodies and Andy McCIusky’s smooth crooning on several tunes could probably make schoolgirls swoon anywhere.

Now words like “pop,” “croon” and “schoolgirls” may make you think that OMD are just the modem, technologically advanced equivalents of the Bay City Rollers or even Bing Crosby, but there’s more to ’em than that. True, there’s enough synthesized syrup on some of these tracks to drown a warehouse full of waffles and the sappy sentiments—““We never learn to guide our hearts” is all too typical— often stick in my throat.

But when they’ve almost lulled you into a soporific stupor with their Joan Of Arc fixations and all, they do something interesting, like on “Georgia,” where they throw the kitchen-sink into the break without missing a beat, then abruptly step into the drone zone for the fade out. Or check the title track, an instrumental that incongruously mixes choral and construction sounds until you think you’re taking Metal Shop in the Prayer Chapel this semester.

I’ve also gotta mention the storm before the calm, the LP’s opener, “The New Stone Age.” The jangly rhythm guitars never quite synch up with the rhythm pulse, and the searing synths push each other around for possession of your ears while McClusky wails in anguish, “Oh my God, what have we done this time!” Then the spunds soften, the rhythms take a military turn and he’s led off... some where. Evocative, disturbing stuff.

What’s more disturbing though, is that “New Stone Age” followed by such noninvolving pap, piddling its way downhill to “Sealand,” a composition of such peaceful placidity that it makes even the Cure’s deepest dirges sound lively in comparison. And what’s weird is that, at a time when at least a few dinosaur bands are rediscovering directness, these guys go on a quest for the ultimate overdub. May they find it soon; only then will they realize that filling up architecture with all the pretty sounds in the world still leaves it empty unless some blood ’n’ guts are included.

Michael Davis

PAUL COLLIN’S BEAT The Kids Are The Same (Columbia)

Moderator: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to cable Channel K’s Rock and Roll for the Erudite. In tonight’s “I’m Right, You’re Fucked” segment, we’ll be discussing the second LP from Paul Collins’ Beat, The Kids Are The Same. To my right is noted feminist critic Inga Ideology; to my left, rock writer and inscrutable chain smoker, Calvin “Ivy League” Caustic. Inga, why don’t you start us off? Calvin: (singing) if you start her up, if you start her up she’ll never stop...

Inga: Can it, Calvin. You would like this record. Yes, I enjoyed Collins’ first album, too. That one went way past mindless and right into primal. Obviously, the young buck was able to circumvent the usual male, linear, analytical sabotage of the intuitive capacity. For that reason, one could overlook the fact that he wasn’t doing anything innovative and was also relegating women to lyrical roles of either heartless trollop, inflatable sex toy or automobile hood ornament. These poor twits were presented as archetypes, which Collins wisely didn’t seem to be trying to pass off as real live women. The instinctiveness and energy of the music made the whole project very pure.

Calvin: (sings) Let’s get arch-etypical, typical, let’s get...

Inga: As I was about to say, without that instinctive primitivism, the lyrical content isn’t forgivable. All of a sudden it’s quite noticeable that he’s a sexist runt. “Crying Won’t Help” takes a particularly offensive and pouty swipe at feminism: women say they’ve changed, he states, but they really haven’t because they still have the gall to get up and leave a man. Real clear thinking, there, Calvin. In the title song, he tells the world to leave the kids alone and let them have some kids—including himself in that age group, I might add—and let them have some fun. Apparently they don’t want to hear about news, politics, or war, because—get this, viewers—their backyard lawns are basically doing the same thing they did 50 years ago. I must say, I wonder what the jerk’s lawn is going to look like after a nuclear attack.

Calvin: It won’t need mowing anymore, Inga. See? The kid’ll get his wish. Anyway, to be succinct, I think you’re full of shit. Granted, this record’s not as raw and jumpy as the first one, but it’s still decent four-bar rock ’n’ roll, which is all Collins ever purported to do in the first place. “Matter Of Time,” “On The Highway,” “Crying Won’t Help” and “I Met Her Yesterday” are respectable executions of the pop form, as good as any on the first record. Look, you’re not supposed to listen to these kinds of bands as if they were the latest transcript from a Men’s Consciousness Group or something. And what he says about women is fairly accurate, at least in regard to my experience with our little tryst last fall, dear.

Inga: (hisses) You asshole... Moderator: (Ahem)...Er, next week, please join us for an exclusive interview with the Swedish medical garbage expert who claims to have done a lab analysis on several quarts of Keith Richards’s discarded blood...

Laura Fissinger

OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN Physical

(MCA)

I came to Physical with an open mind. I thought the single was her best since the Travolta duet and I enjoyed about a quarter of her prime-time tease special. You see, I’ve got a soft spot for Olivia— there’s a positivity at the heart of her blatant ambitions, a risqueness in her current persona, and if she can make lots and lots of money from discopop swinging on a great pair of legs, more power to her. And although I wouldn’t argue if you called Newton-John’s music as often flabby piece of product for the proles, she’s still one of the few mainstream media fares who has steadily improved over the years.

1 began to like Olivia with the release of Grease—her HighSchool-virgin-with-an-itch act was wryly ingratiating, the transformation to leather clad semi-slut inspired, and the best songs (“Summer Nights” or “You’re The One That I Want”) were diverting pop rock pastiches. I’d always found Olivia attractive in an enervated sort of way, but Travolta’s in-heat charisma really catalyzed her latent teeny bop/horny but cute possibilities. With Physical (a far better album then Totally Hot or the Xanadu soundtrack) and the ABC special Let’s Get Physical, Ms. Squeaky Clean has come up with a near perfect pop culture equation (an equation which revolves around Newton-John’s Physicality triple entendre—physical as in exercise and health, physical as in sexuality arid beauty, and physical as in the physical well-being of animals). She really doesn’t need it—“Magic” proved that—but it is a good one, worthy of more than the casual to cynical dismissals it’s been getting from the rock press or the fake praise from the People world of advanced hype.

The prevailing opinion of Olivia’s abilities are best summed-up by statements like “Insidiously addictive pop pap,” and I sense in judgments such as this an almost Orwellian fear of music as pure perfect product. Olivia’s songs are manufactured moments of passing quasi-hedonistic pleasures, simple aural stimulation and the best tracks here—“Physical,” “Recover,” and “Landslide” —are both splendid and superior to anything she’s attempted before. If the litmus test of a decent platter is how much you listen to it, then I must tell you that Physical has been on my turntable non-stop. The point of all this is that there’s more to Olivia then meets the eye, in this day and age she’s a fine role model for young girls: rich, clever, aware, independent, and living with a man ten years her junior out of wedlock. How cool can you get? So although Olivia gets herself laughed out of the arena, I maintain she’s the cassette-tape of MOR stars, a good useful product that quietly bends the expected norm. Enjoy her, use her, discard her, God knows you won’t be able to get away from her.

Iman Lababedi