RECORDS

RECORDS

CHRISTOPHER’S CROSS

PRINCE Parade (Paisley Park)

Jim Farber

Seven albums and one false retirement into the deal, and we pretty much expect cracked behavior from Prince. True to form, his eighth LP isn’t just a Parade, it’s a freakshow. It’s Prince’s strangest album yet, providing a march through 33-and-a-third genres-perminute, from the last LP’s psychedel-ick leftovers to Eurojazz to mariachi to movie muzak, picking up enough sub-genres along the way to cause a world hyphen shortage. I guess you could call the whole shebang aural-Fellini—an eccentric description I’m sure Prince would love to death. After all, how better to preserve your image as an Innovator and Visionary than with music that’s known for being bent?

This element of willful weirdness stops just over half of Prince’s new numbers in their tracks. But the rest—equally weird but without the selfconsciousness—are what pop life 1986 ought to be all about,

Of the boner tracks, six of ’em o.d. on overdubs. The opener, “Christopher Tracy’s Parade,” is representative, dragging Sgt. Pepper dangerously close to The Court Of The Crimson King. Actually, almost all the problem tracks mirror that classic wrong turn in rock history which led well-meaning psychedelic experimentors into the depths of bombastic art-rock. Of course, at least those early pioneers had an excuse—they were on drugs. What’s Prince’s excuse? True, his offense isn’t quite as bad as neo-art-rock. More like artfunk—or Procol Harum with rhythm. Experiments like “I ☺Wonder U,” “Under The Cherry Moon,” “Mountains,” and “Life Can Be So Nice” could permanently give eclecticism a bad name. With dissonant flute hooks, R&B-waltz concoctions and uncalled for jazz splotches, Prince really goes overboard. The real low point, though, must be “Do U Lie?,” which offers a bit of pseudo-Maurice Chevalier continental flair that sounds like Style Council without the style.

But all is not lost. Remarkably, mixed in with the dreck are five tracks every bit as strange and cool as Prince’s best. “Girls & Boys,” sorta combines ELO,

Tomita and LaBelle—and works, while “Anotherloverholeinyohead” has one mother of a hardrocking hook. The most amazing tracks, though, are the two which strip away all the eclectic doodads and just funk-out, “New Position,” is all percussion, bass and voice, with Prince giving it a Jagger that Mick hasn’t been | able to conjure in years. And the j single, “Kiss,” is like the world’s greatest demo record. It’s one of j the sparsest songs to grace the i airwaves since Shirley & Co.’s j “Shame Shame Shame,” inI eluding mega-stoopid lyrics you can’t resist. And speaking of ! lyrics, Prince even manages to turn one of the dumbest lines in press release history—his “retirement” explanation line, “Sometimes It Snows In April”— into a really strong song. Again, it’s a sparse one, with just acoustic guitar, piano and much more fluid vocals than we’re used to hearing from the normally yap-crazy Prince.

So what’s the final verdict? Well, despite the atrocities, there’s actually more great stuff here than on the last two albums.

I guess that’s how it’s always gonna be for this Prince guy— the path of the erratic nut. Luckily for him, sometimes you feel like a nut.

EXILES ON WALL STREET

THE: ROLLING STONES Dirty Work (Rolling Stones)

J. Kordosh

If I knew exactly how the Rolling Stones lost their sense of song structure, explaining this boring rip-off might make for an interesting lecture. But I don’t, so let it serve as a public service message: don’t buy this album. Tell your friends. And, for God’s sake, don’t listen to anyone who tells you this record is anything but mundane. In fact, if someone does tell you it’s anything but mundane, openly ridicule them. It’ll be worth it!

Dirty Work can scarcely be the first-class (let alone world-class) album CBS probably had in mind when they linked up with the Stones. Unless, of course, they desperately wanted to distribute an album featuring guttural vocals shouting pathetic lyrics over meaningless chord changes, in which case the results are quite stunning.

It all hearkens, as mentioned, to how bad the Stones have become at songwriting. In a way, it’s rather fascinating. Years ago—make that many, many years ago—everything they tried had at least minor value. Nowadays, they’ve distilled such a sameness into their work that trying to tell one song from another probably requires some sort of mnemonic device. Oh, the sound quality of the album is great, to be sure. Even the cover looks great (hell, even the inside of the cover—and I don’t mean the record sleeve, I mean the inside of the cover—looks great; it’s lavender).

The songs sure stink, though.

The best of the lot, “Too Rude,” is a reggae song written by Lindon Roberts, probably to support my thesis. As for the Stones’ own songs, only two stand out, and for curious reasons. “Had It With You” makes it pretty much on the basis of an extraordinarily flat mix, which suggests to me that it wouldn’t (in fact, it couldn’t) have hurt to mix the whole album this way. “Sleep Tonight” is interesting in that Richards sings lead, and sounds very much like Bob Dylan. In fact, for all I know, it is Bob Dylan. Way to go, Bob.

The rest of Dirty Work is miserable stuff. Particularly forgettable are the lyrics, which the Stones have obligingly included, although I haven’t the faintest idea why. I wonder which one of these geniuses came up with a line like “Stalin and Roosevelt, yeah, both took their chances”? (I like the “yeah” myself.) Or “I worry about my great-grandchildren living 10 miles beneath the ground”? I mean, don’t we all? Get out of that ground, kids. Nothing tops “Dirty Work,” though, which must stand forevermore as a monument to the Stones’ harebrained self-image: “Living high, sitting in the sun, sit on your ass till your work is done. You lazy mother, your hands are clean. You pull the strings and you got the clout. There’s something filthy living in your mouth. Pushing your buttons you get away free. You let somebody do the dirty work.” Who in the heck are they singing about? Cocaine kingpins? The people distributing this record? My greatgrandchildren’s great-grandfather?

And who cares?

Although the lyrics are all pretty riotous, rest assured the music’s generally God-awful, too. “Back To Zero” (that’s the one about those future Jaggeroids living underground) has a bridge you simply must hear to believe, and maybe you won’t believe it even then. “Winning Ugly” (I forgot to mention how hip the song titles on this album aren’t—sorry) has some of the most gratuitous female back-ups I—and you—will ever want to hear. And I’ll take Exile’s “Hip Shake” over “Harlem Shuffow” any time I want to hear just how black these streetwise multimillionaires can sound, if pushed.

In summation, I guess it’s obvious that Jagger (at least) is cracked—singing “don’t matter if you ain’t so good lookin’” and then posing for this album’s cover points to outright schizophrenia—and that the Stones are musically bankrupt.

The red cellophane they wrap the album in is pretty cool, though.

THE CHURCH

Heyday (Warner Bros.)

As befits their name, the Church plays music which can best be described in one word— devotional. The Church, you see, shows a distinct and noticeable respect for such ever-fallingby-the-wayside-in-theseheathen-times concepts as melody, harmony and structure, and the group does what it does in such an ordered, stately fashion that one is hard pressed to figure out why on you-knowwho’s earth more people haven’t even heard of them, let alone made them as popular as they ought to, by divine right, really be.

They have, after all, been making exceptionally good records since their American debut for Capitol in 1982 and, even though they spent several years excommunicated from American record companies (the Australian quartet finally hooked up with U.S. Warner Bros, in late ’84), even cursory listenings to any of the assorted imported and domestic LPs and EPs in their catalogue makes it clear that not only is their stuff .good, and memorable, but it also displays an unerring clarity of vision that’s really quite remarkable for what is essentially still a youngish band. Perhaps their lack of good fortune here has been just one more test of faith. If so, then Heyday should go a long way towards getting them over to the promised land.

On this new album, as in their past work, the Church gives us songs which require some attention to be appreciated (which is why they’ve been compared at times to Procol Harum), songs which lyrically resist revealing themselves too easily (which is why they’ve been compared at times to R.E.M.), songs which clearly have been painstakingly honed, part by part, until they literally shimmer (which is why they’ve been compared at times to the Byrds), songs which seem endlessly gliding and spacial (which is why they’ve been compared at times to early Pink Floyd). But all these reference points are just that—little anchors that keep letting you know from what waters the Church’s gospel flows.

And flow it does—steadily, gracefully, often majestically. You wonder how the band manages to sound so serene, even at its most furious moments, like on the churning “Night Of Light” and “Tantalized”; how a song as deliriously opaque as “Myrrh” can still hit home; how the lilting “Columbus” can haunt you day after day after day, with no end in sight. And then you realize that it’s the very mystery of these songs that make them so enchanting, and that that quality is exactly what’s missing from so much of what passes for rock these days, and why the Church is such a special group. Amen.

Billy Altman

JACKSON BROWNE

Lives In The Balance (Asylum)

BRUCE COCKBURN

World Of Wonders (Gold Mountain)

We seem to be going through another period when rock ’n’ roll and idealism are forming some alliances. Nothing wrong with that, but at times like these, it’s not a bad idea to check out the thoughts of those who’ve gone through the cycle before. So here we have the latest musical statements of two of our foremost post-Dylan pop sages. After helping to define the solipsistic ’70s with such nauseatingly effective songs as “Take It Easy,” Jackson Browne has discovered activism and how to integrate it effectively into his music. Bruce Cockburn favors a more balanced approach, dealing with the political, the personal and the universal from his own unique perspective.

It may not be much of a compliment to call Lives In The Balance Jackson Browne’s strongest album of the ’80s, but his fear and fury have resulted in a winner. There are only two love songs here, and one of ’em he didn’t write. “In The Shape Of A Heart” shows us he’s learned some things about the ways personal emotions run, but most of these songs have broader implications.

Some of ’em refer back to himself. “Till I Go Down” comes across as a minor piece of Hollywood reggae unless you see how the lines “I’m not gonna shut my eyes/l’ve already seen the lies” contrast with the sensitive sentiments of his very first hit, “Doctor My Eyes.” “For Everyman” has become “For America.” Browne transfers Bruce’s “Born To Run” to Southern California in “Lawless Avenues.” And he shouts and sings angry questions about the nature of power and life and death, most eloquently in the reasoned rant he hides inside the lovely ethno-tech arrangement of the title track.

Of course when a pop star writes politically-oriented songs, some people get their backs up, as if all stars lead lives totally separated from reality. But if you lived there, you’d have to be blind not to have seen how, say, the influx of refugees from Southeast Asia and Central America has drastically changed the face of L.A. over the last five years. Browne is evidently neither blind nor burned out, and he’s putting some pieces together.

Cockburn’s no burn-out either, even though his recording career, too, stretches back to the early ’70s. That’s Canadian recording career; in the States, he’s best known for his ’84 LP, Stealing Fire, which featured “Lovers In A Dangerous Time,” and the unlikely hit “If I Had A Rocket Launcher,” a telling tale of rage and political impotence.

“Rocket Launcher” ’s success make the finger-pointers that start off each side of World Of : Wonders that much more disappointing. Easy targets and vague-if-well-worded assaults do not make memorable songs. More successful is “Santiago Dawn,” with its dull details of early morning repression.

The rest of the album is a mixed bag. “Dancing In Paradise” and “Lily Of The Midnight Sky” feature spoken word sections rich in detail and imagery. The arrangement of “World Of Wonders” borrows effectively from both Van Morrison and Talking Heads and oughtta be remixed into a hit. “See How I Miss You,” with its attractive island lilt, is another catchy gem. The range of material here suggests that Cockburn has found a way to be pissed off with the world and at peace with himself at the same time. I wonder how he does it; I wonder if Jackson Browne wonders too.

Michael Davis

BLUE

OYSTER CULT

Club Ninja (Columbia)

Caught the Cult playin’ (Six Flags) Magic Mtn last August— backstage, Manny Bloom was muttering something about how “it’s been a long career,” but, despite this, there’s been no con-

spicuous drop-off in their metallic-KO dep’t.—even with the very conspicuous absence of Allen Lanier and Albert Bouchard (I personally thought the bummer of last summer was BOC’s persona non-gratis at Live Aid [“we weren’t invited”]—in the very least they could’ve cranked out “Reaper” maybe as the evening’s benediction!)

So LP #13 finds three of the original five intact (ex-Aldo Nova, ex-PiL Tommy Zvoncheck' replacing Allen), once again subordinate to the production of mgr. Sandy Pearlman—the Sandman’s last outing w/the band being, what was it, Spectres?? Geez, that’s 1977 (’s been nine yrs!)—Steely Dan reunions happen in less time! And the LP is like collaboration-city, beyond the past-frequent teamings w/ Meltzer, Helen Wheels &/or Patti Smith &/or David Roter (“Joan Crawford [Has Risen From The Grave]”) etc., some new names: Bob Halligan, Jr., Dick Trismen, the fabulous Leggatt Bros, and Eric Van Lustbader (scribe of the best-selling novel, The Ninja), plus Jim Carroll and the hit songwriting team of Larry Gottlieb and Jason Scanlon (contributions of Meltzer and Pearlman notwithstanding).

Have the Cult hit a creative dry well?

Uhhh...the single, Scanlon/ Gottlieb’s “Dancin’ In The Ruins,” rocks out much in the mode of, say, “Burnin’ For You.” Not quite as ferocious, but, as facsimiles go, it’s all reet. “A rare find from two unknown writers, who seemed to have in mind a sequel to ‘Burnin For You,’” says the CBS bio!!

Side one’s opening opus, “White Flags,” is cute for its shameless parrot of the Police’s “Wrapped Around My (Your?) Finger” in the intro (or maybe Ginger Baker’s “Do What You Like” ??!!)—then grinds its way through a more punched-up assault-nothing like “Hot Rails To Hell” or even “7 Screaming Diz-Busters”—but fairly fistclenched as fist-clenched Cultsounds go these days.

“Make Rock Not War” (honest!) seems to be the record’s bonafide stomper (this —and second side’s “Beat ’Em Up” both penned t>y the aforementioned Mr. Halligan Jr. of Judas Priest infamy [“Take These Chains,” “Some Heads Are Gonna Roll”]) with some nice Donald lead-calisthenics somewhere in the middle. In the “Last Days Of May”/“Love The Night” side of things, the Jim Carroll-lyric’d “Perfect Water” is one of the disc’s high points, Specfres-oid with its snakey melodics (pretty tune w/swell Roeser vocals) and quiet/loud twists and turns.

And speaking of production, Pearlman’s effort back behind the boards seems to be in relative synchronicity with the mental wavelength of chords and the usual BOC scheme of things —nothing as stark as, say, Tyranny or Secret Treaties, but socalled scheme-o-things past Agents Of Fortune seems to have been elevated to the rule and not the exception.

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!!! DANGER, Will Robinson! “Yes, Robot, what is it??” Last couple of songs (“Shadow Warrior,” “Madness To The Method”) on second side’re real real ponderous (non hypo-active) nod-outs.

Gregg Turner

GREEN ON RED

No Free Lunch (Mercury)

RAIN PARADE

Crashing Dream (Island)

I have always attempted to give Los Angeles the benefit of the doubt as regards music. All right, so maybe I’ve never quite gotten over the Dodgers forsaking dingy Brooklyn for California’s sun ’n’ surf, but not enough to dominate my opinion of the place. The city just isn’t very enticing to a person who only occasionally felt Brian Wilson’s tug on the heartstrings, somehow considered the early Byrds halfEnglish, always suspected that Jim Morrison could have done better with New York Doors and Utterly despised those nauseatingly sensitive singer-songwriters and antiseptic mush-pop studio bands that polluted much of the ’70s. Shit, I was the guy who booed Steely Dan when they played Philharmonic Hall!

When the punk explosion osmosed cross-country, it seemed like L.A.’s transliteration was doomed to domination by derivative, self-indulgently destructive brats like Darby Crash. Sure, R. Meltzer’s adopted land yields sporadic flashes of real excitement now and then, but the strikeout ratio —especially for those bands given the big critical hypathon— has been alarmingly high. Over the last few years, things began looking brighter. A new semiunderground crop of twee psychedelic popsters, witty, musical punks, nightstalking disturbers and bizarre funkateers put the town back on the r ’n’ r map, offering a reasuring antidote to even the appalling noise of X.

Recently, big record companies have begun moving in on the local talent. The Bangles, Fishbone, Dream Syndicate, Long Ryders, Plugz (as Cruzados) and others have graduated from the independent world to varying critical and commercial fortunes. The latest recruits are two longstanding scene bands: Green On Red and Rain Parade. After listening to their respective major label debuts, my hopes for L.A. music are waning.

The seven-song countryfried No Free Lunch is Green On Red’s fourth longplayer, one which should finally erase the group’s original misassociation with the dreaded paisley underground. Lest any confusion persist, they cover Willie Nelson’s “Funny How Time Slips Away,” and generally attempt to sound like the Burrito Brothers imitating Neil Young. Dan Stuart —who grew up in Tucson and should know better—alternates an agonized Tom Verlaine yowl with the self-conscious Southwestern drawl of a UCLA grad fed a steady diet of John Wayne flicks. His bandmates blend acoustic, steel and electric guitars into a parody of the boring numbers on Beggars Banquet. The tunes aren’t bad, just too familiar-sounding and laidback to matter. Only the title song, a greasy autobiographical tale with a Reagan reality punchline, and the mournful “Time Ain’t Nothing” really connect, leaving this an otherwise hollow genre exercise.

Crashing Dream continues Rain Parade’s on-and-off Beatlepop fixation, using Revolver guitar gambits to announce pretty if slight songs. “Depending On You,” the LP’s leadoff and most memorable track, has a stately, somber ambience and a haunting chorus but bland lyrics and no tension; “My Secret Country” also has an alluring sound, but relies on numbingly simple chords and a go-nowhere melody. “Don’t Feel Bad” hybridizes “Ticket To Ride” with “She Said She Said”; a neat trick, but so what? “Mystic Green” takes things one step weirder with an uncanny replica of the Records’ first LP. And so on. Rain Parade is all dressed up—in other people’s clothes— with no place to go.

Maybe there’s some inherent danger for bands who leave garageland. Perhaps these bands had already shot their shot by the time the big time beckons. Most likely, major labels simply don’t know who, how or when to pick ’em. My advice? When' in doubt, support independent music. Ira Robbins

TOMMY

KEENE

Songs From The Film (Geffen)

A decade ago, Tommy Keene’s Beatle-influenced melodies and vocal harmonies might have seemed extremely hip. Today, he’s on a power pop trip taken by thousands before him. No matter. Songs From The Film, his first major-label LP after various indie efforts, is pretty swell (keen?) regardless, because crisp, catchy tunes never lose their appeal. Simple as that.

Of course, drawing on Lennon & McCartney doesn’t guarantee you the listener squat anymore: knaves of every persuasion imaginable have appropriated something or other from the Beatle canon. Keene himself proves to be only human on the LP’s weaker tracks by echoing lesser mortals than the Fab Four. “Call On Me” is a pumped-up, manly display of affection that calls to mind Bryan Adams’s “Run To You.” The gentler “Underworld” mopes and whimpers better than Barry Manilow. Lordy! Keene probably didn’t intend to invoke these unworthy gents at all. It’s just mighty hard, to remain on the path of righteousness when no less than Paul McCartney has willingly embraced the forces of stupidity.

Happily, most of the disc turns out to be solid, toe-tapping stuff, perfect for people who want something a shade more normal than R.E.M. or Let’s Aptive. Punchy numbers like “Places That Are Gone” and “In Our Lives” make fine use of his believable, boy-next-door vocals and chiming guitar chords. Producer Geoff Emerick, once accused of draining the energy from Elvis Costello’s Imperial Bedroom, acquits himself admirably here. Songs is polished without being prissy, highlighted by nifty sixstring fills and tinkling pianos throughout.

Whenever Keene’s in danger of falling into formula pop, his maverick streak crops up to break the routine. “Gold Town” features an eccentric brew of jungle drums, twangy Ventures licks, and an ill-tempered axe solo, while the spunky “My Mother Looked Like Marilyn Monroe” contains that odd assumption for no apparent reason. And a deep undercurrent of melancholy suggests nasty devils are slowly roasting Keene’s psyche over a flame. Just the thing to attract the sensitive members of the younger set.

You gotta admire anyone with the nerve to cover Lou Reed’s “Kill Your Sons.” This ominous classic from the underrated Sally Can’t Dance stands as a pinnacle of suburban gothic, starring kids flipped out on PCP and grotesque fat commuters without brains. (The Ramones must’ve taken a cue from it.) Although Keene isn’t totally at home walking the song’s sullen edge, he comes close enough to genuine badness to provide a thrill. Gabba gabba hey!

Best of all is “The Story Ends,” a slice of straightforward sentiment only an android could resist. A heartbreakingly sad ballad, it finds Keene sighing morbid lyrics with a big lump in his throat. Bet you haven’t had a cry this good since Terms Of Endearment. Otherwise, Songs From The Film is simply good fun that continues an honorable tradition in fine fashion. And you know you should be glad. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jon Young

TED NUGENT

Little Miss Dangerous (Atlantic)

the terms “pedestrian” and I “boring” with an ignoble savage 1

who poses for liner photos with particles of small-quadruped flesh stuck between his teeth, but after another listen to Ted Nugent’s Little Miss Dangerous, I’ve got to do my duty. What’s worse is that I bet Terrible Ted knows deep in his ranch-furred soul that this record is pedestrian and boring, but thinks he’s gotta go along with this “updating” of his rock sound, to keep pace with his “trendy** guest appearance on Miami Vice recently.

Let’s face it, Nugent’s hotshot popularity in the late ’70s was one-dimensional at best—you couldn’t get that Mexican-speedwrench approach to guitaring anywhere but on that series of albums Ted made for Epic—and that particular dimension didn t turn the corner of the ’80s very gracefully. By now, after all these years of Reaganethics, WASP businessmen have regained their traditional monopoly on arrogance and egotism, and rebels (even metallic, theoretical “bad boys” like Motley Crue) have to come on a bit sissy to seem “different” anymore. Which leaves a real humanoid like Ted Nugent alone & shivering in the woods with his crossbow flagging.

Ted’s really trying on Little Miss Dangerous. He’s actually left his Jeep-sized ego parked back in Michigan for much of the album. But “modern” cuts like “When Your Body Talks” and “High Heels In Motion” (the latter-conceit an obvious symptom of how far Nugent’s strayed, he’s always liked his wimmen barefoot and carnivorous) sound like they were plotted by a computer force-fed nonstop Loverboy videos and dot-matrix images of Morgan Fairchild. Squeaky, squoozy synthesizers shoving Ted Nugentian tush-foray guitars out of the way? No way, ofay! But they do on these songs. Contempoville dead ahead!

Nugent finally gets his wangotwango axe into fifth gear by the end of each side—notably on “Crazy Ladies” and “Angry Young Man”—but by then the impatient listener is yawning and looking in the fridge for fleshly inspiration. But frankly, Little Miss Dangerous is not totally without interest for wise guys like your reviewer. Covers of “Little Red Book” are always in good taste, and Ted does it up right. And the most interesting cuts aren’t necessarily the ones Nugent would want to brag up around the campfire at his next Survivalist encounter weekend.

I’m rather partial to the title cut of this LP because Ted’s slow and measured vocal on it sounds almost exactly like (get this!) Lust For Life-era Iggy Pop, the same stooge Nugent once threatened to “crush” (CREEM, Aug. ’74). Too bad for yer manicdepressive masculinity, Ted, but you and the Ig are brothers somewhere in the vicinity of your lower-Michigan tongues, that would account for the selfsame accents. And your “Painkiller” sounds vaguely Iggish too, Ted, so next time do lots more, and you’ll be able to go powerlunching in all the best artistic circles. Fergit Miami Vice, that show’s gone as rancid as Glenn Frey’s boxer shorts already...

Richard Riegel

1 KATIE, BAR THE DOOR

I THE POGUES

I Rum Sodomy And The Lash

I (MCA)

Richard C. Walls

Let’s get the gossip out of the way first; Elvis Costello (on his way to re-becoming Declan MacManus) has produced this little gem and is currently the main squeeze of the group’s bassist and occasional singer Cait O’Riordan. For updates on the I impending marriage or breakup or child out of wedlock keep tuned to “Rock’n’Roll News.” And let’s get the racial (a dubious word in this context, but we’re not choosy) stereotyping out of the way second; the Pogues are an Irish band who play traditional Irish music (with not always traditional lyrics) and you know how Irish people are—drunk and happy and gloomy and moody and musical, given to exaggerating their heroes and their troubles (though God knows they have plenty of both), oddly cheerful depressives, imbibing themselves to an early grave. In short, much like common folk the world ’round.

In fact, it’s a combination of the exotic (assuming you’re not a devotee of Irish trad music) and the universal which gives this album its special blend. The Pogues combine their trad approach (and yes that means fiddies and pipes and accordians and mandolins and acoustic

guitars and martial drums play-

ing jigs and reels though I won’t pretend I know the difference between the two) with lead singer and chief songwriter Shane MacGowan’ emphatic if not punkish vocals and churlish lyrics to make an impact both * new and familiar; MacGowan’s

tale of the defiant low life (everything MacGowan sings sounds defiant), ‘‘The Old Main Drag” (“Then the he-males and she-males paraded in style/And the man with the money would flash you a smile/ln the dark of an alley you’ll work for a fiver”) could be about Times Square, while “Dirty Old Town” (by Ewan MacColl) recalls the neighborhood of “Tobacco Road.” The instrumental “Wild Cats of Kilkenny” is a re-working of the Safaris’ “Wipe-out” with a pennywhistle thrown in and when MacGowan evokes the sweat and muscle of “Navigator,” he’s the Bruce Springsteen of the Irish Diaspora (which is a rather silly comparison, but that’s what we critics do).

Despite the obvious limitations of adhering to the parameters of a trad music form (hey, no synthesizers here, man), there’s an agreeable variety of songs on the album—love songs (“A Pair Of Brown Eyes” ably skirts the edges of schmaltz), sad songs, angry songs, tributes to inspirational myths and mythmakers both Irish and borrowed (“Jesse James”) and at least one flat-out tour-de-force, MacGowan’s rendering of Australian songwriter Eric Bogle’s “And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda.” This grisly tale of the infamous battle of Gallipoli is saved from bathos by MacGowan’s rough-hewn delivery. Throughout the album, in addition to the undeniable pan-ethnic appeal of the music (gets me ol’ Scottish-Kraut blood up, I must say) MacGowan’s great achievement (and what makes the record worth having) is that when he sings lines like “I’ve been shat on and spat on and raped and abused/I know that I’m dying and I wish I could beg/for some money to take me from the old main drag” he sounds not at all like your usual romance-ofthe-underclass poseur, but entirely believable. It’s a triumph of Irish soul over universal blarney.