Christgau Consumer Guide

Christgau Consumer Guide

BY

ROBERT CHRISTGAU

KING SUNNY ADE AND HIS AFRICAN BEATS: “Ajoo” (Maskossa):: Since his import-if-you-can-find-it The Message is still my favorite Ade, not to mention my first, I thought it wise to check out the five LPs Ade released in Nigeria between Mango albums. They sounded pretty good, but since “universal language” is as parochial a concept as any other one-world idealism, I wasn’t too surprised to discover limits to my appetite for a conservative, consciously recycled music I half understand. Makossa, a Brooklyn label which has manufactured and distributed African records since 1967, has now released this Nigerian Ade in a cleaner, brighter pressing. I know several neo-connoisseurs who consider Ajoo his best since the first Nigerian Ade they heard, Check “E”; I’d say second-best since The Message (the first shipment of which arrived in the States warped) because I prefer Bobby, featuring an elegiacally lyrical side called “Late Olabinje Benson.” One indication of Ajoo’s quality is that Ade recut “Ewele” and “Tolongo” (as well as Maa Jo’s title tune) for Synchro System, but that’s not necessarily a consumer plus. “Gbeyogbeyo,” however, would make Vangelis turn green if he weren’t so badly discolored already. A-

KING SUNNY ADE AND HIS AFRICAN BEATS: "Synchro System” (Mango):: Top-billed keyboard player Martin Meissonnier has definite ideas about how to produce his client for the non-African market. By emphasizing discrete melodies and heating up the mix, he variegates Ade’s flow, which is how art works back in the U.S.A. Since the impact of overviews like Juju Music is unrepeatable, the switch came none too soon. This more conventionally unified album may not seem quite as arresting as the debut, but that’s mainly because it arrived second. There’s no clearer way to bear the talking drums and choral singing that make juju music what it is. A-

JOHN ANDERSON: "All The People Are Talkin’ ” (Warner Bros.):: Where Ricky Skaggs goes for clean purist diction, Anderson favors a slur that manages to suggest comedy, sex and rock ’n’ roll successively and sometimes simultaneously. That makes him the best thing to hit country music since Gary Stewart if not Tom T. Hall if not Merle Haggard, and his fifth album in three years is his finest yet—the first to surround great hits with uniformly highgrade filler. Or maybe it’s the first to make the filler sound hitbound—his defiant “Haunted House” surprised Warners by stiffing before his defiant “Black Sheep” took off. Suggested follow-ups: the hapfully plaintive “Look What Followed Me Home” and the undefiant public service announcement “Let Somebody Else Drive.” Time: 28:40. A-

“BEST OF STUDIO ONE” (Heartbeat):: Never an aficionado of medium-tempo vocal groups, second-level soul men, or for that matter tempo vocal groups, secondlevel soul men, or for that matter ’60s reggae, I don’t find this loving first-U.S.-release compilation of Coxsone Dodd tracks especially transcendent. “Oh Mr. D.C.” and “Row Fisherman Row” are the finest Sugar Minott and Wailing Souls ever to come my way, and the Termites’ “My Last Love” is a sure shot in a one-shot style. But the Heptones ain’t the Mighty Diamonds, Dennis Brown ain’t Perry Como, and Alton Ellis ain’t Tyrone Davis, a second-level soul man if ever there was one. And so it goes. B +

BIG BOYS: “Lullabies Help The Brain Grow” (Moment):: If this exemplary hardcore unit can’t quite break their LP into the general-interest zone, I begin to wonder whether the new punks are ever going to reach anyone with a full head of hair. The Big Boys are far from monolithic, cutting the blur with ballad tempos and funk rhythms and even horns. Randy Turner’s mock my-voice-is-changing squeal has an old (white) blues singer’s authority. And their unmistakable heart in no way softens the ranting fury that’s the signature of the style. But without a guitar ace (Bad Brains) or a songwriter (Descendents) or both (Black Flag), they cross over only at their best— about six cuts out of 14 here, including the two slowest. Address: Box 12424, Austin, Texas 78711. B

T-BONE BURNETT: “Proof Through The Night” (Warner Bros.):: Never having measured America’s decline by the willingness of its female citizens to take their clothes off, I find that some of Burnett’s allegories fail to touch me as I know they should. But I’m still a sucker for a humble man with a proud guitar. B +

BOB DYLAN: “Infidels” (Columbia):: All the wonted care Dylan has put into this album shows—musically, “Liscense To Kill” is the only dud. His distaste for the daughters of Satan has gained complexity of tone— neither dismissive nor vituperative, he addresses women with a solicitousness that’s strangely chilling, as if he knows what a selfserving hypocrite he’s being, but only subliminally. At times I even feel sorry for him, just as he intends. Nevertheless, this man has turned into a hateful crackpot. Worse than his equation of Jews with Zionists with the Likud or his utterly muddled disquisition on international labor is the ital Hasidism that inspires no less than three superstitious attacks on space travel. God knows (and I use that phrase advisedly) how far off the deep end he’ll go if John Glenn becomes president. B-

GANG OF FOUR: “Hard” (Warner Bros.):: This record is damn near dead on its feet, but I don’t think the missing ingredient is Hugo Burnham’s human chops so much as his humane spirit. The sick-soulof-success lyrics are part of it—even their most received new left truisms always had a sloganeering hookiness about them. What really makes the difference, though, is the detachment of Jon King’s delivery. If I didn’t know better, I’d wonder whether he want to turn into Phil Oakey. And actually, I don’t know better. B

GAP BAND: “Gap Band V: Jammin ” (Total Experience):: Like Cameo and Rick James before them, these old pros blew .their sure shots on the breakthrough—this drops no bombs. But once again the follow-up album compensates for never getting up by never letting up—the uptempo stuff steadfastly maintains their hand-stamped party groove, and like Cameo (forget Rick James), they’ve figured out what to do with the slow ones. That Stevie Wonder move is not-fail—just ask George Benson (or Eddie Murphy). B +

“THE GOLDEN PALOMINOS” (Celluloid/OAO):: This cacaphonous avantfunk expedition was masterminded by master drummer Anton Fier for Bill Laswell’s label (and basses, and on one cut scratching), and it’s their pulse that keeps it going. But as an incorrigible content freak, 1 regard it as an excellent source of Arto Lindsay, who sings or plays on six out of seven cuts and helped compose five. It’s not as funny or demented as the best DNA, but it’s funny and demented enough that unless you liked DNA you probably won’t consider Lindsay much of a singer or player. I never put it on at bedtime myself. A-

JOE JACKSON: “Mike’s Murder Soundtrack” (A&M):: What a pro. The song side spices up his patented mild satire with more Latin rhythms, a Booker T. Winwood organ part, and the semiclassic “Laundromat Monday.” And on the instrumental side, watch out Dave Grusin—Joe was once musical director of the Portsmouth Playboy Club. B-

KID CREOLE AND THE COCONUTS: “Doppelganger” (Sire):: Counting his previous (and best) album some kind of sell-out because it’s held together by a dance groove, the Kid here returns to the musical comedy stage for yet another original-cast recording. As usual, the book exists only in his head, and the putative plot precis does little to clarify just what these engaging but disconnected occasional songs are about. And I really want to know—the more closely I analyze the apparently surface wit of the Kid’s lyrical-musical synthesispastiche, the more I wish I could see the show. A-

CYNDILAUPER: “She’s So Unusual” (Portrait):: This blue angel won my heart by covering two of the sharpest pop songs of the past five years, “Money Changes Everything” and “When You Were Mine.” But she pursues the bimbo potential of her Betty Boop voice so single-mindedly that only two more of these bright tunes really stand out—the one where she kisses me and the one where she diddles herself. B +

LOCAL BOYS: “Moments Of Madness” (Island):: A studio group fabricated by superproducer Glyn Johns around the unbankable Andy Fairweather Low, they’re really international men, but the conceit suits Andy somehow. His aphoristic colloquialism and cracked, unassumingly intense vocals carry everything on the record except the lovely, Lofgrenish “Angels Fall,” which belongs entirely to second banana (and sometime Who keyb man) Tim Gorman, and the overblown, Springsteenish “Shoot Out On The Highway,” which must be somebody’s idea of AOR. A-

MC5: “Babes In Arms” (ROIR cassette):: Despite all the rare mixes and original versions adduced in the notes, the only great track totally unfamiliar to this proud (and lucky) owner of the 5’s three albums is a cover of Them’s “I Can Only Give You Everything.” The rest of the obscure stuff merely augments a superbly paced compilation. The raw songcraft and new-thing chaos of Detroit’s other great protopunk band where further ahead of their time than it seemed five years ago. And drummer Dennis Thompson was a motherfucker. A-

RICKY SKAGGS: “Don’t Cheat In Our Hometown” (Sugar Hill/Epic):: Nothing if not an astute traditionalist, Skaggs understands that what makes country music go is the tension between heaven and hell. But where most great country singers come off mealy-mouthed in the virtuous mode, Skaggs makes it sound as if he only sins because he knows he’s supposed to. This may mean he’s not a great country singer.

B +

UB40: “Labour Of Love” (A&M):: Slightly annoyed at all of Ali Campbell’s sufferation, I was about to dismiss these classic covers as a reggae Pin Ups when I noticed Astro’s toasts and the U-Threes’ backup saving the two Harder They Come remakes. A week or two thereafter it hit me once again that reggae tunes can take a long, long, time to hook in. And by then, guess who I was suffering along with. A-

X: “More Fun In The New World” (Elektra):: Aimed at the no-future generation, X’s passionate reconstruction of musical (and martial) tradition is salutory, and this is their most accomplished album. Both the songwriting and Billy Zoom’s guitar reach new heights of junk virtuosity, and “Breathless” is a stroke. But they’re too complacent in their tumult. Their righteous antiBrit chauvinism prevents them from seeing that in its way Culture Club, say, is at least as satisfying and generous-spirited as the Big Boys. And their unabashed beatnik identification not only stinks slightly of retro but misses the point of rock bohemianism, which is that a proudly nonavant band like this ought to risk a little of its precious authenticity in an all-out effort to make converts. A-

YAZ: “You And Me Both” (Sire):: Alf Moyet may not have as “good” a voice as Annie Lennox, but she’s more fun to spend half an hour with—cut her and she bleeds, etc. A bit of an old romantic, though, which really isn’t that much better than the new kind. B !