CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE

CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE

BY ROBERT CHRISTGAU

DELE ABIODUN �Adawa Super Sound�

(Shanachie)

Sunny Ade aside, this is the bestconceived juju album ever released in the U.S. One half is specialty items to engage the untrained ear—dub here, funk there, out harmonies somewhere else, all integrated unobtrusively into the basic weave. The other half is tipico medley, like on a real African juju album, which oddly enough is the first time that self-evident ploy has ever been tried out on the American public. A-

ANGST �Lite Life�

(SST)

These three guys are smart enough to know they have a problem—they can�t sing. They�re also smart enough not to let that stop them. After declining the Most Inappropriate Cowpunk Band'Name Lariat Twirl and qualifying for the Eklekticism Rods Speed Trials, they enter the Music Machine Memorial Songwriting Contest and do all right—you�d swear �Just To Please You� (or was it �Never Going To Apologize�?) was the track that caught you humming on Pebbles VI. B

THE ROBERT CRAY BAND �False Accusations�

(Hightone)

His singing is strong and unadorned, except by his waste-free guitar, but what makes Cray a major artist in an obsolescent style is songs, the sharpest often written by his producers. Not since Moe Bandy was an honest man has anyone laid out the wages of fucking around with such consistent precision. A-

THE DEL FUEGOS �Boston, Mass.�

(Slash)

This is the story of Dan Zanes—his passion, his pain, his brave refusal to hire a synth player. Its real location is Anywhere, U.S.A. �I Still Want You� would make some garage band a nice slow one. B-

FELA ANIKULAPO KUTI �No Agreement�

(Celluloid)

Like ail groove artists, Fela benefits mightily from marginal differentiation, which on this 1977 outing with his classic Afrika 70 band is provided by the blats, splats, and tuneful snatches of Lester Bowie�s trumpet. The 15:36 title side is distinguished from its 15:48 companion by a few minutes of Fela mouthing off and a much catchier keystone ostinato. B +

GILBERTO GIL

�Human Race/Raca Humana� (WEA International)

How readily songs breach the language barrier varies inversely with how verbal they are. As engaging as Gil�s vocabulary of trills, growls, whoops, keens, and discretionary phonemes may be, he�s also a careful wordsmith, and listeners who don�t know Portugese feel an absence unallayed by universalist title or Jamaican rhythm section (though a printed translation might help). Which makes the relative legibility of 1983�s Um Banda Um all the more miraculous—though it�s worth noting that that title sounds like discretionary phonemes to this English speaker. B+

AL GREEN �He Is The Light�

(A&M)

It�s not that Al�s reunion with Willie Mitchell makes no difference—the difference is fairly striking when you listen for it.

What�s striking when you think about it, though, is that you have to listen for it. Leroy Hodges�s famous bottom keeps the record flowing like none of Green�s other Jesus LPs, but it�s still the songs that make Or break—in this case neither. B +

CHRIS ISAAK _ �Silvertone� KV (Warner Bros.)

Like his East Coast counterpart Marshall Crenshaw, Isaak comes to his sources as a professional musicI ian, not a bohemian dabbler. This is attractive, only his sources aren�t as ^ rich as Crenshaw�s, and neither is his talent. Reflective modernized rockabilly played for echoing atmosphere. B

�LIFEBOAT� (Dolphin EP)

Though one can�t help wishing this Boston quartet�s agitpopcraft were a little less earnest, its straightforward mechanics have their appeal in a genre pervaded by ingratiating wooziness and glossy manipulation. And so does the thought behind the mechanics—always a pleasure to encounter the term �ruling class� in a song traveling at less than 150 miles per hour. Time: 19:29. A-

LOUNGE LIZARDS �Live 79-81�

(ROIR cassette)

Before they were a bad jazz group or a

hot fusion band they were a mordant postpunk concept, the avant-garde Raybeats: Ornette Coleman hires Henry Mancini to score Slaughter On Second Avenue. More than their antiseptic Editions EG album, this captures their raw sleaze, not to mention John Lurie�s reptilian embouchure and (on three cuts) Arto Lindsay�s cool-defying guitar. B +

THOMAS MAPFUMO �The Chimurenga Singles 1976-1980�

(Meadowlark)

If you want to know what revolutionary music might sound like, put aside the translations and just listen to this rock-influenced Zimbabwean singer turned Mugabe partisan. Sounds like regular music, doesn�t it?

In plain English, Mapfumo�s expressive and rhythmic authority are all the meaning you need. And the translations from the Shona suggest other virtues. He has sufficient respect for his listeners� intelligence (and his own life, though he was jailed for a while anyway) to couch his messages in innuendo. And unlike so many African pop stars, he�s not afraid to take on traditional wisdom when it�s impeding history. A-

THOMAS MAPFUMO �Ndangariro�

(Carthage)

No crib sheets accompany these six circa1983 tracks, but I gather they�re less propagandists than Mapfumo�s wartime output, which given his man Mugabe�s Shona chauvinism is probably a good thing. What I�m sure is that they generate a ferocious groove—the rhythm guitar attack of Mapfumo�s Blacks Unlimited band never slacks off, maintaining the indomitable uprush of great African pop well past its usual fading point. You think music �transcends� politics? Then get this, sucker. A

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EBENEZER OBEY �Juju Jubilee�

(Shanachie)

I didn�t pay much heed to complaints that this album cheated Nigeria�s other big juju star by fading his hot tracks early. After all, juju isn�t supposed to begin and end the way umbaqanga or Europop does—songs are designed to segue together for nonstop dancing. And there are notable themes and spectacular sounds throughout. But since they never assert a collective identity, cheating Americans of the wholeness they look for in African music, I have to assume the fades are at least partly at fault. B +

�Phezulu Eqhudeni�

(Carthage)

Pretoria restricted black musicians to �tribal� topics in 1975 just as it does today, so it�s probably for the best that we can�t understand the Zulu lyrics on this classic umbaqanga album; it frees us to concentrate on the content of the music. There�s nothing folkloric about the firm yet intricately catchy bass-and-guitar rhythms of the Makgona Tshohle Band—like so many rock �n� rollers before them, these are country people permanently displaced to the city. And if Boer culture has produced a singer with half the intrinsic humor and spirit of Mahlathini, an early exponent of the intensely projected frog-voiced style you hear on so many South African records, I assume he or she is thinking seriously about exile.A*

THE POGUES

�Rum Sodomy And The Lash�

(Stiff Import)

Having been left tepid by Irish music from the Chieftains to Clannad, I filed Red Roses For Me after a token try—drumbeats or no drumbeats, I figured it was just beyond me. It wasn�t until the last track that I suspected this one might be different. �And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda� comes from Australian folkie Eric Bogle, one of the least commanding singers in any hemisphere you care to name, but its tale of Gallipoli is long as life and wicked as sin and Shane MacGowan never lets go of it for a second: he tests the flavor of each word before spitting it out. I associate this technique with producer Elvis Costello, who probably deserves credit as well for the album�s clear, simple musical shape. But none of it would mean much without the songs—some borrowed, some traditional, and some proof that MacGowan can roll out bitter blarney with the best of his role models. Try �The Old Main Drag,� about Irish lads tricking, or �The Sick Bed Of Cuchulain,� about Irish heroes dying. A

PREFAB SPROUT �Two Wheels Good�

(Epic)

Paddy McAloon is a type we�ve seen before—the well-meaning cad. Expressing himself with a grace befitting an intimate of Faron Young and �Georgie� Gershwin, he�s sweet enough to come out on the losing side sometimes, but in the end he�ll probably �Let that lovely creature down,� because he can�t resist a piece of ass. J.D. Considine calls the music �Steely Dan Lite,� which is nicely put but misses its folk-pop flavor— reminds me more of the justly obscure, unjustly forgotten Jo Mama. And also Aztec Camera, if Roddy Frame were a cad.B +

THE RATTLERS �Rattled�

(PVC)

Led by Joey�s little brother Mitch (Leigh), this is the terrific little pop band the Ramones never convinced anybody they wanted to be. The Ramones� conceptual smarts earned them an aura of significance even when they made like sellouts. The Rattlers are neater—sharp formally and technically, terse and tuff. The K.K.K. didn�t take their baby away, just some radioactive mutant, and they cover �I�m In Love With My Walls� as if Lester Bangs wrote it just for them, which he half did. A*

THE RAVE-UPS �Town And Country�

(Fun Stuff)

Near as I can tell, the main thing country-

rock does for Jimmy Podrasky is let him sing his songs in a drawl. The drawl doesn�t pass —when it comes to Appalachia, Podrasky�s native Pittsburgh is close but no corncob pipe. The songs, however, are pretty hip, a credit to Podrasky�s lit-major fondness for Dylan and Twain. This being country-rock, they generally take a chugging freight-train rhythm. And Podrasky being a closet popster, they generally have hooks. AS