OVERPOWERED

THE CLASH Combat Rock (Epic)

by

Richard Meltzer

Far and away the two most important musical whatsems of the seminal anti-deathculture late-70's UK scene were the Sex Pistols and (it says here) Throbbing Gristle. In addition to turning the necessary stomachs (Bill Graham, Jann Wenner, etc.) the Pistols helped their cause (and ours) immeasurably by ceasing to exist as a rock 'n' roll whatsem at all, self-destructing with incredibly perfect timing and (in the case of Mr. Lydon) metamorphosing into the second most arch-anti of practicing whatsems, PiL. First most arch was—and still is (even in its own belated nonexistence)—the above-mentioned T. Gristle, who never for the merest second surrendered to the merest lure of mere success, never in fact allowed itself to be perceived as a rock 'n' roll beat group (or even a "group") in any possible mainstream sense of the word. As people with ears and nervous systems like everybody else, both Lydon and the T.G. folks are certainly capable of enjoying musicfor-mere-entertainment-sake (Lydon, for inst, purportedly maintains one of Britain's largest reggae collections and T.G.'s Genesis POrridge is an avid collector of—say hey—Martin Denny) but they have always been more than scrupulous in their steadfast avoidance of that deathtrap called ROCK 'N' ROLL as a context and occasion for personal expression of same, and for that we really can't salute 'em enough.

Moving right along to now, the only shamefacedly brazen keepers of the anti-etc. UK flame anymore are the Fall, whose gamemaker/ groundskeeper Mark E. Smith recently wrote me in a barely legible scrawl: "Our last LP got best critical reaction yet, which surprised me, as it was meant to be a huge SOD OFF [caps his]. Established celebrity status for 1st time around here, & honestly it cut me up much—people staring at me in the lst/last domain, the pub, where formerly I'd go to forget. But it's isolated me at last, i.e. I'm careful where I go & I trust no-one again." R&R fame and fortune is, to Mr. Smith, the lamest goal available to one of wit and spark and the man's music extends his rejection of conspicuous achievement well beyond rock-out lifestyle to the pure plain of rock 'n' roll form: avoidance of hooks like you wouldn't believe, riffing as neither expedient cyclicality nor reference to Bo Diddley or the Velvets (not intended generatrix of sperm-meetsovum, nor Enoesque "minimalism" in a nutshell, not...you name it), the usage of pop as a more arch "out" factor than it is with Mingus or Albert Ayler, etc., etc., etc.

TAKE ME, I'M MINE

R1CK JAMES Throwin' Down (Gordy)

by

Mitchell Cohen

He has a voice that's like a Looney Tunes imitation of Edward G. Robinson. His priorities (or those of the character he's created) are getting laid, getting high, getting rich. Rick James is all come-on, all egocentric hedonism, and he makes humpy, very alive partyrock. On Throwin' Down, there isn't much that engages his interest —he sounds distracted when the subject isn't himself, or doesn't lead to the bedroom—but within the small circumference he's proscribed for himself he manages to keep the energy unflagging at least twothirds of the time.

It's typical of James's approach that even when he makes a generous move, it gets turned around. So he writes and produces a song for the newly reunited Temptations (Ruffin and Kendricks are back) about the topsy-turvy vagaries of wordly fame, and it ends up centering, like Prince's "Controversy," on people's reactions to him, his braids, his image, etc. Or he'll duet with protege Teena Marie on a smoochy cut 'that's supposed to be about understanding and compromise. What does that mean? That he understands that she has it tough dealing with a guy as hooked on stardom as he is. That she understands how tough it must be to be as hooked on stardom as he is.

Such fine distinctions aside, Throwin' Down does zip along musically, and does have a few tracks with the flex'n'pop sass of "Give It To Me Baby" and "Super Freak," the two hits from last year's Street Songs. "Hard To Get," Dance Wit' Me" and "Throwdown" do tend to blur in the mind after five or six plays, partly because of the pacing, partly because James's pick-up line could use a little variety. How can you tell a song that starts "Pretty little thing, girl you're lookin' fine" from one that starts "Say little girl, know you're lookin' good" or "Girl you're cute, you're sweet, you're such a sexy treat?" Next time, Rick, try, "Don't you think that Monet's 'Water Lilies' represent a fatalistic romanticism"? Works wonders.

That libidinous trilogy is the sharpest stuff on the LP, and there's a nice neoclassic ballad, "Teardrops," as well as a song that puts him squarely in the Gordy-Motown tradition of economic determinism, "Money Talks" (you can trace the Motown story from Barrett Strong's "Money" and The Miracles' first hit about erotic comparison shopping, right up to this track and The Tempts' "Money's Hard To Get"). "Money Talks" has a grabber of a hook, and points a finger at Reagan, something that only black artists seem courageous enough to do (and with unawed casualness, too; like Prince, James calls the Pres "Ronnie").

These comparisons to Prince go only so far. James is a less convincing sensualist, and has a less fertile, or perverse, imagina-tion. When he sings about being "kinky" or "freaky," it could just be oral-genital contact he's talking about: the possibilities of Prince's bizarre scenarios don't occur to him, and if they do, he keeps them out of his music. James comes on fast-talking and brash, like Sgt. Bilko engineering some scam, with a self-assured mastery so presumptuous and certain of its charm as to be unassailable. He has the "explode the cliches by exaggerating them" attitude of his predecessors in black rock 'n' roll, and the shrewdness to cloak Throwin' Down in a Conan sword & sorcery package that has nothing to do with the contents. James' music says, "hand it over!"

Situations being as they are, however, the average CREEM reader won't get a chance to hear this album, or the Temptations' uneven Reunion, or the exhilaratingly confident new music on Stevie Wonder's Original Musiquarium 1, or The Funky Four + 1, or Prince, or Michael Jackson, or Black Uhuru. (Can you conceive of a pop radio station in 1965 refusing to play the Four Tops because Levi Stubbs sang "too black?") It's the reason why WABC had to shut the music off: the age of pluralism is over: it's back to racially-biased segmentation, back' to the Light Ages of "race music." James may have helped isolate himself from vacuum-packed radio by calling his music "punk funk," a double whammy to scare off programmers more comfortable with the likes of Axe, Aldo Nova and Asia. The modal sound of AOR means nothing is supposed to startle, or interrupt the flow, and dance rhythms are only acceptable from U.K. bands who use machines.

Remember Murray The K's extravaganzas in Brooklyn, remember The T.A.M.I. Show, remember The Sound of Young America alongside The Beat of the British Invasion, remember when CREEM put Smokey on the cover and devoted a series of features to Sly Stone. We've come far, right? Like shit.

What I'm taking my time to get to (I guess) is if you take even a sloppy look at the last six years of anti-deathrattle UK ferment I can't see placing the Clash at the forefront of either stage one or stage n + 90. Somewhere in the middle's maybe a different story, like Sandinista! has gotta be the most arch subversion yet of a major label's time and money for forcibly arcane purposes, plus it's easily the fullest realization of specifically black (i.e. Jamaican dub), antimainstream, non-homogenized, non A = A, non-Anglo-Am-deadend PRODUCTION VALUES in the annals of whiteboy recording per se, for which these guys certainly deserve a round of claps. But this new one, the one I'm supposed to be reviewing, doesn't exactly put them at the forefront of anything unless you're talking forefront of mere (qua mere) ROCK 'N' ROLL PRODUCT, a forefront/ storefront shared by an enormity of hack pros equal to the population (at least) of say, Bayonne, New Jersey.

What we've got here (pure and simple) is the merest mere ever perpetrated by a group of louts who weren't purveyors of mere to begin with. And by mere I'm not even talking thin in qual or product-forproduct-sake (like to merely satisy a contract or whatever). I'm just talking rock 'n' roll (regardless of qual or state of cynicism) without any lingering irony other than lyrical—and lyrics are (often) the biggest whore of all. 'Cause like here's the band that once sang "No 'Elvis, Beatles or the Rolling Stones in 1977," I mean it was them and nobody else, and here they go shaking the same threadbare booty shaken by each of the three fabled no-no's: mere rock 'n' roll to the mere goddam hilt.

With Combat Rock the Clash have finally (officially) opted to work from WITHIN THE BEAST, to pull the rock 'n' roll equivalent'of GOING CLEAN FOR GENE (hint: 1968), to let the deathculture destroy them because (as they shabbily defined things) they could no longer hope to destroy it. Which actually shouldn't come as much of a surprise, 'cause in spite of an ever-droning refusal to "play ball with the company" they've ALWAYS been -titillated to the shorthairs by 1. the every-growing lure of total rock-out rockhood as at least a possible turf for the postboho experience and 2. the debilitating fantasy of a nouveau-political power base, a potentially useful international visibility attainable for the continuing small fee of an increment here and there of artistic integrity. The (unintentional) irony of their whole-hog submission to the non-ironic rock 'n' roll "trip" is what CBS has ultimately gotten out of them independent of its own attempts at inducing same: alternate Springsteen meets surrogate Nugent (y'know: anonymous ballplaying "boogie band" w/ passably "thoughtful" lyrics). That the company probably still won't know how to market them will only be their just dessert.

Which is not to say they ain't swell people, and it really is too bad it had to be them as the first true martyrs (on any kind of true martyrdom scale) of punk sellout w/out laughs. Their swellness is manifest on virtually every cut, as they double over backwards to radically educate (without bravura or condescension) their new audience of rock V roll sheep per se, a functionally lobotomized herd so many others have insincerely led by the nose (to slaughter or worse).

On "Overpowered by Funk," for inst, you can catch the finest fine-tuning yet of the Clash's ANTIIDEALIZED POPULISM, a supersubtle message-whoozis sheepfolks are sure to "relate to." In the PRODUCTION UNDERKILL of "Should I Stay Or Should I Go?" and "Sean Flynn," you see 'em defusing the gratuitous bombast of "Gotta Get Away" and "Under My Thumb," respectively, a feat fans of the latter pair have always "needed." By sticking the two most bearable mere-rock cuts ("Inoculated City" and "Death Is A Star") at the tail end of side two, they've dangled the gift of CUTSEQUENCE DECONDITIONING, something that will surely come in "handy" in the alb-listen years to come. And by making Allen Ginsberg their RADICAL GUEST SPEAKER on "Ghetto Defendant," they've shown the kids a little respect for "designated elders." (The point being: give 'em enough mere boogie and their mere adulation will convince even YOU they're also buying what remains of the rest of your formerly non-mere package.)

Okay. Seeing as how I still haven't said a goddam thing ("pro" or "con") on the album as an album (mere merely rated) all I can say is this is their fifth album now. If they, wanna be taken seriously for their mere-dimensionality, it wouldn't hurt to stack 'em up against some classic meres in their fifth outings. Fifth Beatles LP (excluding Hard Day's Night) was Beatles '65. Fifth Stones was December's Children. Fifth Dylan was Bringing It All Back Home. If you wanna get more thorough, fifth Doors was Morrison Hotel, fifth Dead was Workingman's Dead, fifth Byrds was Notorious Byrd Brothers. In each case you're talking some level of departure (other than surrender), you're talking buzzwords like thrust and self-assertion (with nary a secondguess, generic or otherwise). Most of all you're looking down the barrel of anywhere from eight to twelve great cuts.

So. Since the Clash offer at most 3.4 even decent cuts, since the fairest you could be about their sound is that it feels submerged in standard-issue rock-cut ruts, since their lyrical imagery could without difficulty be described as watered down, since the closest this LP comes to any of the above is the fact that two-thirds of the time you could easily be listening to the post-Beatle George Harrison, this mere word-jockey rates Combat Rock (by standards the Clash've brought on themselves) a RELATIVE PIECE OF SHIT.

SQUEEZE Sweets From A Stranger (A&M)

After the unbridled eclecticism of last year's East Side Story (...and now a psychedelic drinking song and then a C & W WWII vignette and then a mood piece a la "Eleanor Yesterday" followed by some rockabilly...) which was met with a barrage of critical approval and a noticeable increase in public interest (though radio, that closed shop of rock journeymen, remained rather unresponsive) Squeeze has decided, on their fifth album, to lighten up on the transgenre cleverness and concentrate on the melodic pop that lyricist Chris Difford and composer Glenn Tilbrook do so well. Of the 12 originals here only "When The Hangover Strikes," a smoky jazz ballad, is a gratuitous display of versatility—for the rest, the album, maintains the Squeeze high standard of excellence without breaking significant new ground. Which is all right, 'cause occasional consolidation is the better part of staying power anyway.

More cohesive, then, and a little more soulful too—not just because of the presence of "Out Of Touch," which has modem funk edges, and "Black Coffee In Bed," which is respectfully Motown (with E. Costello supplying some background syllables), but because Tilbrook's singing seems tougher (partly due to the production, their crispest thus far) with less of the amiable preciousness of tone that English popsters often favor. Another new wrinkle is a lyric sheet, helpful since Tilbrook's Anglo-enunciatioos are often tightly welded to fast-moving melodies and it'll serve to clear up at least part of Difford's purposefully ambiguous lyrics (meanwhile, in that other magazine, there's another off-the-wall review which manages to overlook the fact that most of these songs have a lot of loose lyric ends—dangling aphorisms being part of the tradition— which don't need to be tied up by Eng. Lit. style exegesis overanxious to identify thematic unity. Critics can be so tedious...).

So, 12 songs of ambivalent relationships and alcoholic beverages, brimming with wonderful arrangemental touches —the "Gloria"-vamp of "I Can't Go On," the whole song being very British Invasion (nice piano solo too by new member Don Snow who replaced Paul Carrack who replaced Jools Holland—the group has somehow managed to weather the departure of two strong keyboard personalities without any detrimental change in or diminishment of their sound); the keening synthesizer sounding like a demented Acker Bilk on "Stranger Than The Stranger On The Shore," a truly ominous sounding song seemingly about disorientation and a divided self; the strings quoting "My Favorite Things" at the end of "Tongue Like A Knife," etc., etc.

Very good. But what chance, you may wonder, does an album of smart pop for people fed up with radio drivel and alternative poseurs alike have to be a big hit in this cruel and unjust world? Well, it's like the guy saiid a few weeks ago on American Bandstand's rate-arecord segment, after he'd given high ratings to singles by the Jam and Bow Wow Wow and Dick Clark asked him if he thought they'd become hits—he said I think they should but they probably won't. And Dick said I think you're right.

Richard C. Walls

HEART Private Audition (Epic)

Some bands I just ignore for no conscious reason. I barely know enough Heart songs to fill a greatest hits LP—which is what they released last year—and I have never knowingly listened to a Heart album all the way through. Perhaps the thought of a distaff J. Tull (which has always been my subliminal quick take on the band—folkie metal w/ flair) didn't exactly whet my appetite.

What the hell—I'm sure the blithe condescension of Prof. Nesin didn't bother the Wilson sisters or their legion of fans one whit. And I haven't really been all that cavalier: the singles were agreeable enough, and I'm certain that the current much-applauded hospitable commercial climate for rocking women has at least something to do with Heart's abroad appeal and hard touring. So I listened attentively to Private Audition and tried to figure out what makes up a Heart album.

I started by listening to "City's Burning" (side 1 track 1—I'm a traditionalist) several times to check for hit potential. I was enjoying the song but still uncertain about its radio future (I couldn't have picked "Barracuda." Could you?) when Ms. Candy, an illustrious veteran of too many such campaigns, shouted from another room, "Who's that? They sound like a lost 60's band."

"That's right," I grinned back. "I think this is the record the Jefferson Airplane would have made if Signe Andersen hadn't gotten pregnant."

"Nah," she said decisively. "From Detroit. The kind of band that never wore shirts and always wore headbands."

...AND YOUR LITTLE CONCEPT, TOO

KANSAS Vinyl Confessions (Kirshner)

by

Rick Johnson

'Fraid we've got still another concept album here. OK, three guesses what it's about. The L.A. Coalition for Milk Case Recovery? Wrong Answer. The effect of extinct jewelry on leech orgasms? Wrong answer. Bein' a star?

You got it, peach-meat. I guess nobody ever told these guys there've already been 1,473 concept albums about rock stardom (through June, '82 according to the Concept Album Revenge Squad). The trials, the tribulations. The total irrelevance to anything human.

But this, after all, is Kansas, man! Swimmin' pools, movie stars. Corn. I'm not exactly sure where they fit into the ponytail hierarchy, but hey—this is National Frigidaire Week. Do you know where your Bdairy products are?

Kansas cannot be faulted for (consistency. They've released 1974's Album of the Year six or seven times now and they've got it down to a skit. Heavy guitars and bulging bass riffing together. Keyboards splashing colors like a radium map of the Pentagon's underground sprinkler system. A drummer who sounds like he's typing on tinfoil and powervolleyball vocal harmonies featuring their new lead singer (dim memories of Steve Walsh records in dollar-bin exile). "Ringing of the ears or Head Noises," as Lou Ferrigno says in his public service spot.

Fans of the group should like Vinyl Confessions because it's just as solid as any of their other albums. And I mean solid. You could kill mooses with this record, chop watermelons, conquer the world, you name it.

Folks who can't figure out what their fans like about Kansas are listening to the special effects instead of the group's' heavy metal understructure. Sometimes they sound like a gigantic power trio, or 15 power trios. Not unlike Chicago without the horns.

Speaking of horns, the guys slipped some outside tooters into this LP. The "Heart Attack Homs" appear on three cuts, inconspicuously blended into the mix like a lethal mutation. Sounds like some strings too, expecially on "Play The Game Tonight," the designated hit. Could be synthesizer though and who really cares?

This being a big bad smartypants conceptual jobbo, must tell a fascinating story, right? Not a chance, so I'll tell you this substitute story: A woman I used to know hated to "go home" for Xmas. She said her younger brother and sister would follow her around the house/yard/town singing "a/1 we are is dust in the wind" in a weird, Outer-Limits-fype falsetto. Finally, the kids tried singing it to her across the dinner table on Christmas Eve. My friend got so mad she threw her fork in the rutabaga and stomped out the door, never again to return home for the holiday season. The end.

Let's close with a word of wisdom from our Kix State pals. "The windows of the world," they tweet, "are never open all the way." Whew! Not exactly a "lookout kid/ they keep it all hid" but it does convey the hurt, the anguish, the pain of their very stardom. This never happens with Fasteeth.

The last word on pain comes from an authority on the subject, Squiggy from Laverne & Shirley. "Of course it hurts," he says. "It's pain. That's what it's supposed to do."

I still like the junior Airplane theory myself—good ensemble singing and lyric overreach with plenty of shrill punch when indicated. Side two's "Fast Times," a speedy gloss on the gruelling rat race that should have been called "3/5ths of a Mile in 4 Minutes," and "The Situation," an agitated enough, vague enough song about what we all must struggle against (albeit rather more formulaic than Messrs. Kaukonen and Cassidy were capable of in their salad days,) are surely pointed down the right runway. But the Wilson sisters broke out of Seattle in the middle of the Me decade and, whatever their youthful fancies, their pop chops are sharper than their anthemic capabilities. Consequently, "Bright Light Girl," a cheerfully adolescent Monkees update, is graced with lovely harmony singing, "This Man Is Mine," a well-meaning homage to the Marvelettes, is such a winning idea that it survives Michael Derosier's lead-footed drumming (Never risk Motown, especially subtle Motown, without an appropriate drummer) and "Angels," a wispy song for Sean Lennon, is so sweet I liked it in spite of my cynical self. My favorite is "Perfect Stranger," about a close encounter with same in which Ann's singing develops a powerful sexual undertow without overplaying the zipless fuck: heated without being lurid.

1 will not end this review the way Heart ends Private Audition, with "America,".a pseudo-Southern novella so dreadful it made me long for "Theme from The Long Hot Summer." (Paging Jimmy Rodgers.) Instead I will end by saying that though their lyrics aren't as smart as their arranging and singing, don't worry, baby. If I'm not embarrassed by the Wilson brothers, why should Heart fans be embarrassed by the Wilson sisters?

Jeff Nesin

ROXY MUSIC Avalon (Warner Bros.)

Chances are many fans of Roxy's early high gloss outrage are finding it hard to warm up to the subdued, somber landscapes the band now calls home. Over the years, ironic affectation and quirky wit have been edged out, as the band began what detractors might call a slouching towards listenability. Manifesto (while not sacrificing any I.Q. points) housed their prettiest pop, but their last LP, 1980's Flesh And Blood, signalled the real design change: smooth, lovely keyboards washed in, color coordinated with relaxed sax, easier beats, subtle guitar and dark undulating bass. Most of the more animated inflections of Ferry's voice were echoed into oblivion and—could it be?— this was the first Roxy Music LP with no yucks.

Some found it velvetized MOR and entirely snoozeable. And it took a few thumbs-down listenings of my own before I recognized the album's gentle subversions. In time I came to see its sluggishness as credibly sad, romantically wistful, and even a bit eerie. Maybe you could throw in "alluring" and "elegant" as well. Ferry's solemn voice may have seemed less complex than before, but it wound up sounding more straight-forwardly lovely in return.

Avalon continues the thickly clouded mood (even the up-beat tracks are in a haze), but here the songs are even more ear-catching. Ferry's melodies are getting lusher and more singable all the time and, as on the last platter, his keyboards are now a major part of the general glaze. Ferry's singing (heavy on the falsetto to up the vulnerability) is swept up in a musical swirl—the enveloping funk in "The Space Between," the hypnotic dance mix of "The Main Thing," or the pulsating bass of "To Turn You On." The sax, bass, keyboards and guitars all blend into each other in an exciting; cooperative ooze. Ferry's straight readings of his plain lyrics of hand-on-brow romantic longing and resignation are so effective that I don't miss the old I asides and humorous moments that much. The sweet mood of melancholy captivates—right down to the brief gestures, like the two instrumentals, highlighted by Andy MacKay's tempered sax in "Tara." The record is filled with shining small strokes, like MacKay's oboe apparition in "Take A Chance On Me" or Manzanera's fuzzed funk guitar in "The Spate Between."

As beautiful, heavily "produced" and seemingly low-key as it all is, you could never file it away dnder "mellow." True, you can't do The Strand to it. But the romantic beauty Ferry's always crooned about, Roxy now fully embodies— maybe the real sound of the Siren itself.

Jim Farber

JOHN HIATT All Off A Sudden (Geffen)

I lie awake at night worrying whether John Hiatt's overnight success must remain an unrealistic hope, whether this time the collegiate young adults who should be his audience, slipping him on between Costello and Talking Heads may finally realize his delirious charm. Then I remember that the question is academic since All Of A Sudden has already gone the way of the 1980 Two Bit Monsters and the 1979 Slug Line, namely straight to obscureville and cult heaven, and 1 go to sleep.

The advertisement in the rock rags for this album reads: "You've heard'of John Hiatt, now you can hear him," but even that is wishful thinking. In Europe, Hiatt has a small but appreciative following, partially because of his stint last year as Ry Cooder's guitarist. Over here we Hiatt freaks are part of a secret society, which is more than a shame, since compared to the dry adolescent funk of Britain's prime contenders or the hack fake subversion of much that passes as contempory American pop, he's really a perfect alternative.

At 18 Hiatt was writing songs for a music publishing house in Nashville for the grand sum of $25 a week; at 21 he released his first album, Hangin' Round The Observatory on Epic, Now, at 29, Hiatt has had his songs covered by the likes of the Searchers, Maria Muldaur, Rick Nelson, Rosanne Cash, Dave Edmunds, and the afore-mentioned Cooder. In between, there were solo stints around America's coffee shops and bars, two albums for MCA, and the sort of press all the record company hype in the world can't buy. For awhile (his MCA years), he was being portrayed as this country's answer to Elvis Costello because of the pure pop craftsmanship of his best songs and the vitriolic rage and literateness of his lyrics. But Hiatt was never as obsessively misogynist as early Costello and his singing was hysterical, whiny, even ugly, with commercial viability made unlikely by an overt refusal to compromise on anything.

Until now. All Of A Sudden is the best sort of compromise, one in which everybody wins. Producer Tony Visconti (who was so good with Bowie but seemed all set to become the '80s answer to the '70s George Martin) has given Hiatt a mock glam pop ambience on the first side and allowed him to break loose while breaking down on the second. The back-up band (keyboards/bass/drums) are nicely anonymous and strongly tuned to Hiatt's tin pan alley constructions. The music itself here ranges from Tex-Mex and rockabilly to blueeyed soul and Motown inspirations. And, though Hiatt is an excellent guitarist, he isn't a hog, and when he licks his chops over a song like "Doll Hospital" countering Jesse Harms' Jerry Lee keyboards, theeffect could blow Rockpile right off the juke box.

However, it's as a lyricist that Hiatt really shines, and he's seldom been better. The single minded anger that runs through his work is still here, but now is tempered by emotive adoration (My Edge Of The Razor") and insight ("Marianne"). "Overnight Success" is about the morning after a nuclear war ("the next big thing's going to dance and sing us all off the face of this earth") and is both chillingly hilarious and oddly optimistic, with Hiatt cooing to his new lady love ("They call it big time love/but I'm not nervous/because all the turtle doves are out of service"), refusing to read the newspaper because "all the news gets soft before it hits the deadline." The song finally ends with the two lovers "fast asleep at the big premiere;" now that's politics in song I can live with.

And that's not even the best. "My Edge Of The Razor" is a stunning ballad, Hjatt revolving around the "Razor" wordplay, throwing it into a dozen permutations, and while it seems very personal, it's so easily empathized with that it floors and devours me. In the bio that came with the album Hiatt says, "I hope to get my lyrics even more pared down, the idea being that, by simplifying, you ultimately get something more weird." And that he does; there are many dense writers, but Hiatt gets his messages across through simplicity, directness, and wild imagination. Judging by all the covers, other artists are certainly hearing those messages. Maybe soon, you will, too.

Iman Lababedi

THOMPSON TWINS In The Name Of Love (Arista)

"They don't know what to call us/'Cause we don't have a name" croons an anxious Tom Bailey, in the Thompson Twins' "Perfect Game." Well, that's not exactly true, Tom; as a practicing rockcrit, I've made a ragtag career out of assigning debut albums just like yours to the various stylistic categories on the pop spectrum. In fact, as soon as your album leaves my play pile (chances look good for at least some post-review spins), it's headed straight for the "Limeytronix" shelf of my record collection where it can repose in oldartschoolchums glory into perpetuity, safe and glad among XTC, U2, Echo And The Bunnymen; O.M.D., etc., etc., forever and ever. To serve me all their days.

Categorizing, I know, is probably unfair to all concerned, but I feel compelled to stockpile all these Limeytronix LPs nevertheless, in the hope that this whole style is going to become clear and differentiated to me one of these days. Because it should be obvious by now that all these 'tron bands, all these wiseblood kids of Ferry/ Bowie not Beatles/Stones, define the British pop style of the day, no matter what fascinating things punksters like the Vice Squad are doing out on the fringes.

A whole new British Invasion, with intricacies and ramifications us numb Yanks can't yet begin to imagine, but a stillborn Invasion at that, because (same problem as always here), the commercial radio stations won't touch 98% of these records. Don't ask me how the Human League's "Don't You Want Me" suddenly came all over our airwaves this month; it's so smashingly superior to the Asia/Journey glop which usually frames it, that I'm just overjoyed it's there (caught it three times in a half hour in my car the other day, with judicious button-punching). The radio programmer boys (bless their constipated butts) have finally allowed us to get to know a Limeytronix band personally, via nonstop exposure, and the Human League suddenly have a very distinct personality for me, something I've never had a chance to discern in O.M.D., et. al.

Powerful stuff this personal exposure. If we were permitted enough modern Human Leagues by our radios, the fabled kids out there would make congenital crapheads like Christopher Cross yesterday's news faster than you can say "Paul Anka." Which is where the Thompson Twins finally come in, somewhere near Human League's bouncyllectual, I'mdancing-as-distanced-as-I-can territory, but with more "real" instruments (what sounds like a guitar is a guitar) plus the Twins overlay their tron riddims with heavy funk/reggae beats, he.., the Thompson Twins really are nothing new if you've managed to hear many recent British albums already. Just as the Hollies and Searchers were "nothing new" if you'd already caught the Beatles, but that didn't mean you didn't want to hear all three groups anyway.

The Thompson Twins' "In The Name Of Love," catchy rubadub beat and all, could be just as big on U.S. radio as "Don't You Want Me," if the right programmer person (computer?) up there pushes the right button. "In The Name Of Love" is just good basic thoughtful modern pop, the kind I want my radio-addicted daughter to grow up on. Then she can make the informed distinctions she'll need. I demand modern radio NOW.

Richard Riegel

ADRIAN BELEW Lone Rhino (Island)

This album, like its creator, was in trouble from the beginning. First off. Island has been flopping among distributors lately, like some prizeworthy marlin, before being finally hooked by Atco, and the delay caused Lone Rhino to be released the same day as the new LP by King Crimson, Adrian Belew's "first division" band. Moreover, there have been those dangerous Expectations, high on Belew's guitar work with Crimson, Talking Heads, Bowie, et. al. who demand greatness or nothing from this latest guitar hero.

Guitar hero? This undramatic, non-glamorous skinnykadink?Well, yeah. Who else do you know who can make his axe sound like an elephant being abducted by aliens into a flying saucer? Lime jello laced with radio static? fiow about a vacuum cleaner in heat? Nobody I know. In the neat noises division, Adrian's the main man of the moment, no question about it.

But Belew knows it takes more than noises to make an album, so instead of a freakout instrumental LP, we get a collection of songs, written, arranged and produced by Adrian himself. His obvious professionalism helps him out with the production—this stuff sounds good —and his years as a traveling musician, "...livin' in a suitcase, looking' for a call/Leerin' at the telephone and laughin' to the wall," have given him a cheerfully warped view of the world. If that means he lacks the expansive artistic vision of a David Bowie or a David Byrne, it also means he feels confident enough not to try to fabricate one.

The songs themselves range from so-so to pretty good but it depends on what you're listening for. Like, no way is "Big Electric Cat" a memo-tune, but I'll gladly sit through it to hear that meowing chainsaw. And there are definite high points here—the intelligentlyarranged, raucously-performed rocker, "The Momur," the oddballbut-somehow-touching ballad, "The Man In The Moon," and the soft, post-Hendrix instrumental, "Naive Guitar." I'll even confess a weakness for "Adidas In Heat," despite its sounding too close to Zappa for comfort.

So what it comes down to is that Adrian Belew is not a god. If that upsets you, too bad. The fact that Belew himself identifies with rhinos (in a droll manner: "I know the zoos protect my species/They give me food/Collect my feces") lets you know he's under no such grandiose illusions. So if you wanna go back to Fantasyland with the Expectations and dream up the ultimate rock star, go right ahead; I'd rather crank up "The Momur" one more time and go nuts.

Michael Davis

RAY PARKER, JR. The Other Woman (Arista)

If soft funk is Ray Parker's main squeeze, the other woman is rock 'n' roll—dirty, white boy, garage gi-tar, thump and hump rock 'n' roll. It was a mumbling, leering undercurrent in his work with Raydio and last year's A Woman Needs Love. On this new one-manshow, Parker finally takes her out steppin in public. As of midJune; the "Other Woman" was *4 and holding on the Billboard pop singles chart; obviously, the public approves of her.

For two whole songs he lets her dazzle us; nine minutes and thirtysix seconds of an. earthquake substituting for a mattress under Parker's aural satin sheets. "The Other Woman" and "Streetlove," in word and instrumental deed, are downright uncouth; meanwhile, via Ray's compulsive composure and good musical manners, everyone can pretend that nothing smarmy is going on. (Let's be discreet!) And not only are these songs smarmy, but they carry a delicious justice as well—like Prince and Rick James, Ray Parker has the imagination and audacity to complete the loop: white boys stole blues and soul, and whitened it to death, so these three steal the worst of it back and make it glorious as is-—coarse, simple, soulless. Parker puts an added twist on the whole ruse with those good manners of his: he's obviously having the last laugh on all those ill-bred arena fauntleroys.

The rest of the LP isn't bad by a long shot—it's just such sleepy familiar stuff compared with his rock 'n' roll. All of Parker's hallmarks are there: clarion, selfassured guitar leads, blink-andyou'll-miss-it metric shifts, synthesizer plumped up like pillows behind the melody and beat. Then of course there's Ray's singing— sleek, unsnagged, with a raised eyebrow and a half-smile skewering even the most solemn lyrics. So cuts like "It's Our Own Affair," and "Stop, Look Before You Love" are good, stock Parker—immaculately rendered tales. But who wants morality after seeing what he's got going on the side? Now that we know how good he can rock 'n' roll, staying home just doesn't seem like much fun after all.

Laura Fissinger

DAVE EDMUNDS D.E. 7th .(Columbia)

A hardhearted traditionalist with forthright dedication, Dave Edmunds has sought to preserve the classical textuality of rock 'n' roll for 15 years, crashing headlong through the barriers of heavy metal and punk. If we have not exactly paid attention to him through those years, it's hardly his own fault: his output has been somewhat responsible for the success of artists such as Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello, Graham Parker, and even the dreaded Foghat.

But here the legend ends. Because, for all of Edmund's worthy studio craftsmanship—the uncounted moments he has produced, the unknown instances where his guitar has left an indelible twang —we still do not know him. While it is true that his story could be padded into a rather interesting quickie bio, his tale certainly does not approach (as pop fanatic Greg Shaw has actually suggested) the level of Phil Spector, Buddy Holly, or Lennon and McCartney. In Edmunds, what we have is simply the auteur theory stretched to its logical and absurd conclusion: the recognition of an artist as the footnote to his corpus instead of as purveyor of vision.

Forgetting Love Sculpture, as of now Edmunds has given us seven polished long-players, all quite playable—one weird (Rockpile), two mediocre (Subtle As A Flying Mallet. Tawngin1 three near great (Get It. Tracks On Wax 4, Repeat When Necessary). Judgement on the seventh, and newest, D.E. 7th, is pending.

Of course, it doesn't hurt to have a Bruce Springsteen tune, "From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come)," open the album, and although it's a trite composition, Edmund's revamped band revs it up on a full tank of gas. Such determined romping also occurs on Terry NRBQ Adams' "Me And The Boys" and "Bail You Out." But Edmunds is best appreciated as a producer, a role in. which he surpasses even his notable musical, talents. The attempts to shape a commercial bluegrass-style sound on "Warmed Over Kisses (Left Over Love)," to authentically meld swamp pop with New Orleans R&B on "Louisiana Man," or to add some crazed exoticism via blasting horns on "Deep In The Heart Of Texas" are difficult tasks accomplished with zeal, transforming otherwise innocuous pap into listenable pop.

And, once again, Edmunds does himself, right by resurrecting yet another relatively obscure Chuck Berry classic, "Dear Dad." One of the all-time great car songs (featuring a clever punch line), it's the shortest, fastest and best cut on D.E. 7th, an unabashedly joyous performance on which Edmunds gives his all. Yes, the moment is inspired, but undoubtedly because of the song, not the singer; hence, the question still remains: who is Dave Edmunds?

Robert A. Hull