RECORDS

RECORDS

WILDE NIGHT

THE SMITHS

Michael Davis

The Smiths maturing? The idea is intriguing. The possibilities for improvement are there, but how’s this going to affect frontguy Morrissey, you might wonder. He’s come on like an observant innocent from the start and his honest petulance has been part of his appeal for his sizable cult audience, even as it turns off others. His slightly I larger/stranger than life image is 1 part of what’s helped the Smiths 1 rise above the pack of postI Orange Juice hummable/strumI mables who’ve been showing up 1 all over the British Isles during 1 the past few years. What if he I should (shudder) grow up or 1 what if he gets so crazy he 1 scares everyone away?

Well, if he walks the line beI tween innocence and knowI ledge, acknowledging both I seriousness and silliness he’ll be I able to do more albums like this I one. Real emotions and outlandI ish notions are coupled in new 1 ways here; lyrics and melodies 1 parry at cross purposes or play I with listeners’ expectations. The 1 Smiths certainly have a unique I perspective, yet they’re also part I of the healthy heritage of rock ecI centrics; one can imagine a slab 1 of prime period Ray Davies, liber1 ally seasoned with Cale and I Cohen, being served up on a I platter such as this.

Maturity affects different areas I of the group in different ways. 1 From a production standpoint, 1 the rhythm section has much I more punch and presence than I on last year’s Meat Is Murder, I and the band as a whole sounds 1 more forceful, even when I guitarist/co-writer/co-producer I Johnny Marr is only strumming I chords. *

Now, Marr remains a master of melody—to say he gives good chord progression would be giv.§ ing him short shrift—as well as I being among the most selfI effacing lead guitarists in rock. 1 With these guys, you always I hear the. song first, not a guitar I lick. Since they’re also pop I magpies of the first order, you’ll I hear bits and pieces of pop’s I past sprinkled throughout their 1 arrangements as well, providing I oblique bits of fun and ironic 1 reference points.

They mix it up all sorts of ways * these days. The melody and mood of “Cemetry Gates” are upbeat, yet you’re left asking » yourself why Morrissey finds it so I natural to go to the graveyard to 8 discuss poetry on a “dreaded I sunny day.” The absurdity of I authority is taken to task in an 1 ultracivilized manner on the first I two tunes, but by the time we get I around to side two’s rockabilly* fueled “Vicar In A Tutu,” their lampooning has gotten downright loony.

Not even their trademark melancholia, escapes without a tickle or two. Oh, it’s left alone with a gorgeous melody on “I Know It’s Over” but it’s not,allowed to take itself too seriously on “Bigmouth Strikes Again.”

“There Is A Light That Never Goes Out,” unites both their up and down sides, adding several twists to typical teen gotta-getoutta-the-house traumas. After insisting that, “it’s not my home, it’s their home,” the passen-

ger/singer steps aside as the drummer quotes the break in “Hitch Hike,” only to return with this jaunty chorus: “And if a double decker bus/Crashes into us/To die by your side/Such a heavenly way to die.”

Right. Well, it’s strange. It’s catchy. It’s cute. And it’s the Smiths. But if it’s maturity, hey, can senility be far behind?

MADONNA

True Blue (Sire)

Look, I don’t blame all you Madonna non-fans out there. I, too, was a non-fan—in the summer of ’jB3, to be precise. I remember looking at the photos on that first album cover. Nice stomach, I thought to myself. Then I put the record on.

It was all I could do to stay awake. Simple ideas, simple lyrics, simple melodies, simple dance beats. I tossed it in the slush pile and went back to the latest Joan Armatrading LP. No disco duck am I, no siree.

But the singles slowly started peeling off onto the radio waves, and, God help me, I started to get into the groove. What an embarrassment. An assignment to interview her popped up shortly thereafter. I thought for sure she’d be a witless shrew, just as half the press (who’d never met her) had already decided. Wrong again. She was smart, funny, blunt, and calmly unwilling to act all nicey-nice so a writer will write all nicey-nice. (It was obvious later, that was the trouble— writers expect their daily minimum of keister-kissing.)

After that story, I found myself in the futile position of defending Madonna to pals who were sure she was just an oversized gerbil. By then it was becoming hard for me to understand the world’s obstinance when it came to Miss Tummy. “A child of five can see that ‘Material Girl’ is a goof on conspicuous consumption, not an endorsement,” I would argue. “Phooey,” my articulate grownup friends would reply.

But guess who I didn’t have to defend her to?? Ms. Armatrading, of ail people, the darling of the high-IQ set. During an interview, Armatrading voluntarily and enthusiastically endorsed Ms. Ciccone without any apparent sham. “She’s got the perfect pop voice and sound,” said Ms. Armatrading. Geeeez!

With the release of True Blue, Mrs. Penn continues to be perfectly pop. And if this were a perfect world, the review could stop here. When it’s truly perfect, pop-ness is review-proof. Either you want to hum and dance or you don’t. With True Blue, I do. And there’s a bonus—Lady Madonna is starting to put more and more of her wit and intelligence into her music and lyrics. Should you accidentally sit down and stop humming, True Blue can still be thoroughly dug.

No need to describe the record cut by cut—you’ll recognize the basic Madonna recipe. Rocksolid, booty-twitching drumming and bass-playing; nice midrange guitar and keyboard detailing; hookssharp enough to catch killer whales; strangely imaginative sing-song singing in that strangely appealing bleating alto voice; funny and fascinating recycling of classic pop riffs, axioms, and attitudes. An example of that last item: in the 100-watt dance-track called "Jimmy Jimmy,” Madonna quotes a rock ’n’ roll standard in the chorus, and then tags on an additional line that puts a whole new spin on the old question—“Why do fools fall in love with fools like you?” I bet Jimmy Jimmy didn’t know what to say back.

There’s a whole truckload of cool little twists and turns like that on True Blue, which is what makes it the most interesting of Madonna’s three LPs. On the first two, she was mostly busy being pretzled by wanton lust and wicked desires. Now, in keeping with her status as a devoted married lady, she’s dealing with the gnarlier problems of long-term love in the trenches. I like her this new way—a little more grown up, a little more direct about her more tender feelings, a lot more adept at showing her smarts. She’s almost as good at that last one now as she used to be at showing her belly. Granted, Madonna’s belly is pretty terrific. But her brain is even better.

Laura Fissinger

DAVID LEE ROTH

Eat ’Em And Smile (Warner Bros.)

I always hated Sammy Hagar. I mean, the guy looks like a dust mop that accidentally went through a creosote pole treatment plant. I ask you: can he sing, can he write, can he even dance? So when I heard ol’ curlytop was to “replace” David Lee Roth in Van Halen, I thought, hot dog—now Diamond Dave’II show ’em!

Then I caught the “Yankee Rose” video while remoting from Scooby Doo to She-Ra, and I was more convinced than ever. The song’s an instant classic—your ears practically need riot gear to listen to it! At last, Mr. BanisterPants is gonna prove once and for all who was the real talent in Van Halen!

Yup, it’s Eddie. Hey, I didn’t wanna think that! I hate Eddie too and his stupid brother (him more). And I really hate Valerie Bertinelli. What the heck, I even hate Michael Anthony!

The evidence in these grooves is too damn obvious, though. Eat ’Em And Smile is the lousiest album I’ve heard in years! It just totally goes nowhere! There should be a sticker on the back saying, “Listeners are urged to bring lawn chairs.”

Apparently, D.L.R. blew his entire bang account on “Yankee Rose.” I was expecting a whole LP full of killer riffs for starters, but you couldn’t find another hot guitar line here even if it was punched on the vinyl in braille. OK, OK, so “Ladies’ Nite In Buffalo” has one that’s kinda neat in a Chic sort of way and “Elephant Gun”...uh, exists, but the rest of the record could be advertised as the garbage dump that eats like a meal.

Let’s poke some bubbles in this here arsenic lagoon and get specific. “Shyboy” zooms all over the place with fancy guitar runs until you finally wanna scream AWRITE! AWRITE! The guy can play guitar! We believe you! Now get him outta here!

Stumbling right along, there’s some cool percussion stuff in “Goin’ Crazy” that sounds like the drummer is pounding on commemorative spoons and license plate frames, while Dave hollers “goin’ crazy, goin’ crazy from the heat” in the near-

II background, thus revealing where he got the title for his solo EP. Whoopee. How very Doors, man!

You Aerosmith fans out there could get a good laugh out of “I’m Easy” and “Bump And Grind,” but don’t go and actually buy the record, just tickle yourself instead. What else?...oh yeah, “Tobacoo Road,” the third song every garage band in history has to learn. Wonderful version, guys—about as big a deal as the second worst I chuckwagon crash in Calgary * rodeo history.

Worse yet is “That’s Life.” Uh-

huh, you got it, Frank Sinatra s rock ’n’ rolliest tune ever in a new improved version with gospel gals singin’ “whoa” in back! A horn section! The Sid Sharp Strings! Jimmie Haskell!

There is, however, a nice picture of a naked lady on the innersleeve.

Rick Johnson

RUN-D.M.C.

Raising Hell (Profile)

If you think that rap is just some metrical motor-mouth rhymin’ about how great he is in every way, with minimal but apocalyptically loud, reverb rhythm accompaniment and you’ve decided that you’re not interested in that (though I can’t imagine why), chances are you haven’t heard Run-D.M.C., especially not lately. This trio (“Run” is the nom-de-nick of Joseph Simmons, “D.M.C.” is Darryl McDaniels; third member is Jason Mizell a.k.a. Jam Master Jay) has gone beyond wild boasting to a fairly wide range of topics and, on this follow-up to their last (and second) album, King Of Rock, has added what might seem at first some unlikely components to the usual electronically enhanced thump and ping.

Continuing their effort to make some kinda synthesis of rap and rock (specifically heavy metal), the terrible trio not only cover Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way,” but use guest actual-Aeros Joe Perry and Steve Tyler. Theoretically, these pale-boys serve the same function as E. Van Halen on M. Jackson’s Thriller, being agents of a Realpolitik attempt to “widen” the rap audience, an audience limited by the fact that rock and R&B and all their offshoots and inshoots remain largely a music of consumer identification. Most people want some sort of version of themselves up there (and in the grooves) and they’re usually not overly imaginative when it comes to possible identities (mainly because they’re not encouraged to be).

Which just means that if this album doesn’t go platinum, it won’t be for lack of trying; not only is there the Aerosmith connection, but “It’s Tricky,” a rap about the pitfalls of fame (ail that free dope and, uh, TV exposure) actually borrows the riff from “My Sharona,” while the title cut takes a clod from the metal turf not only musically but lyrically— though, natch, these guys would never immerse themselves in the whole rickety panoply of Christianity’s garish underbelly like the metaleers, being more interested in tweaking some egos and kickin’, some butt (or “booty,” as most white college grad rock crits are prone to say).

As far as I can hear, this raprock mixing sounds like a natural and gives both forms mustneeded infusions of new color (so to speak); rap can use the power chords and metal can use the verbal acuity (not to mention the focusing of the rebellious impulse in the direction of realworld problems, and a certain lightening of metal’s tendency toward the clubfoot bop). Aside from the rock stuff, there’s more boasting, same as it ever was (sounds like filler to me), though you’ll note the shift from gonnamake-it to have-made-it songs. Of these, the best is “My Adidas”—the title may make you cringe, but it’s more in the spirit of “Blue Suede Shoes” than, say, Donovan’s “I Love My Shirt.” Then there’s the social commentary raps like “Dumb Girl,” which is more cautionary than snide, though it’s also harsh and at times funny, and “Proud To Be Black” (subtitled in my mind, “Kiss My Ass, William Bradford Reynolds”) which is macro-boasting, and good for it.

Overall then, Raising Hell is about two parts bluff, two parts outreach, and three parts mind, mouth, and body working together to create a viable identity in this altogether strange world. And by my calculations, that makes it one of the better albums around this month.

Richard C. Walls

STEVE WINWOOD

Back In The High Life (Island)

Like the man whose record I’m reviewing once said: Sometimes I feel so uninspired. It’s been a rough week at work, the heat’s nearly got me beat, and I just saw Van Morrison (who I consider one of the greats) bore the living daylights out of me with a sleepwalk performance at one of those awful outdoor venues. Why, even the new Ramones album has failed to give me the lift I need. Can you imagine? I mean, really—gimme gimme shock treatment.

So I sit here lethargically trying to compose some thoughts on the subject at hand in between a continuing series of cold showers. Alright. Now get serious. Concentrate. When I think of Steve Winwood, I think, of: the incredible soul-sonic force of “Gimme Some Lovin’ ”; those first two Traffic albums with so many groovy mindblowers (pardon the terminology—I’m evoking the period) like “Dear Mr. Fantasy” and “Forty Thousand Headmen”; seeing a dull Traffic jam at Fillmore East with Winwood’s back to the audience; Blind Faith, one of the original supergroup fiascoes; Traffic’s endless descent into the bowels of blank inertia; mentally yawning at the thought of a Winwood solo career; instantly recognizing the jubilant “While You See A Chance” for the great AM single it was; three extremely lackluster solo LPs.

I certainly held no hopes for the fourth and, considering the mood I’m in, a slam wouldn’t be out of the question. But it’s not gonna happen because, flaws and all, Back In The High Life is far and away Winwood’s worthiest solo effort to date. The last time he managed to sustain things this well was on the first side of John Barleycorn Must Die.

I mentioned flaws. After four years, Winwood was only able to come up with eight acceptable songs? One of them (“Split Decision”) is questionable; three or four others feel padded and could’ve easily been trimmed. (There should’ve been a credit for editing on the sleeve.) There’s also too much dependence on synthesizer/sequencer programming and overloaded horns. The most unfortunate drawback is that the sound sometimes recalls Genesis alumni Phil “What’s a shave?” Collins and Peter “Poseur” Gabriel.

But Winwood deftly survives the aforementioned setbacks and turns in some of his most emotionally convincing work in ages. He sounds completely assured; relaxed but not tired, alert but not over-eager, footloose if not fancy free. He’s on top of it whether he’s reeling off a stinging guitar solo on “Take It As It Comes” or rejoicing over John Robinson’s backbeat on “The Finer Things” or having his heart broken on “My Love’s Leavin’.” And he’s heading straight towards seventh heaven on the euphoric “Higher Love,” with intoxicating back-up vocals from Chaka Khan. The horns kick in, the chorus is airborne, Steve’s in glorious overdrive, every second counts, and my main squeeze just walked in. Gimme gimme some lovin’. Consider my spirits lifted.

Craig Zeller

FOREVER CHANGELESS

R.E.M.

Lifes Rich Pageant (I.R.S.)

Jon Young

You’ll get no argument here on the subject of R.E.M.’s excellence. Their intriguing folkrock swirl, primarily the product of Michael Stipe’s fervent mumbling and Peter Buck’s thoughful fretwork, makes a mighty tasty tonic for the ears. So what else is new? That was obvious three years ago. Although the worthwhile Lifes Rich Pageant (a quote from The Pink Panther, minus the apostrophe) easily passes muster on its own merits, there’s one thing we really need to know: Is it something new, or just another R.E.M. record?

This is an important question. Even if you love ’em, there’s no denying it’s sometimes been hard to distinguish one R.E.M. platter from the next. Like the Byrds, to whom they’ve been compared, the guys wrap their songs in a dignified Style that tends to obscure the variety of the material. Album after album, such consistency can start to seem like a failing, swell though the individual tunes may be.

Lifes Rich Pageant addresses this situation by calling on bigshot producer Don Gehman, of John Cougar Mellencamp and Brian Setzer fame. Gehman is a pro at highlighting specific elements of the mix, which can’t help but alter the sound of a band with a well-documented preference for muddy sonics. As he did with Mellencamp, Don gives the percussion a sharp, crackling edge here, ironically creating a new, albeit minor, problem—drummer Bill Berry is capable but nothing special, so placing him at the center of songs like the grinding “Begin The Begin” leaves a hole in the front line. The lighter “Cuyahoga” works better, allowing Berry to simply lay out the parameters of the music, Charlie Watts-like, while Stipe and Buck hold the spotlight.

Now the big news: for the first time, you can understand much of what Stipe’s singing! Goodbye to the fuzziness that once led me to mistake “Catapult” for “Can Of Worms.” Greater clarity doesn’t guarantee pearls of wisdom, however. Stipe engages in free-form, nonliteral ramblings, ranging from profound to silly, or sometimes both at once. The moving “Fall On Me” is a wistful masterpiece that finds him crooning, “By the sky and sell the sky/And lift your arms up to the sky/And ask the sky and ask the sky/Don’t fall on me...” If this reminds you of a flaky beatnik poet, rest assured it all makes a sort of wacky sense after a few listens. “I Believe” kicks off with a cute I’il banjo intro, then shifts into overdrive for some typically odd confessions from the mushmouthed one: “I believe in coyotes and time as an abstract,” not to mention, “I believe my shirt is wearing thin and change is what I believe in.” Might be a parody of inspirational songs, eh? Hard to tell.

Other tunes take a more direct approach. “Just A Touch,” a manic, spine-tingling rocker reminiscent of “Radio Free Europe,” features savage piano pounding and Stipe’s relapse into total slurring. A take-off on atmospheric movie music, “Underneath The Bunker” would be a nice throwaway instrumental without the scratchy backgound voices. “Superman,” the only genuine departure and only non-original, offers a cheerfully dopey excursion into psychedelic machismo, with sparkling three-part ’60s harmonies. Extra-nifty!

Thus, for better or worse, the rest of Lifes Rich Pageant reveals nothing new about R.E.M. Once the novelties of Gehman’s production have worn off, it’ll stand as just another example of their unchanging, eccentric brilliance. Which means it’s pretty darn good, come to think of it. Anyway, this progress stuff is overrated, don’t you think?

GENESIS

Invisible Touch (Atlantic)

Now that guitarist Mike (& the Mechanics) Rutherford has followed Phil Collins’s trail to his own Top 40 success, a new Genesis album is a natural, right? Just ship ’em out and watch ’em get snapped up by record-buyers hungry to hear...yet more Phil Collins? Is anybody out there as sick of this guy as I am? Apparently not, ’cuz Invisible Touch be climbing inexorably up those charts as we rant ’n’ rave. First of all, try to forget the first single and title track, which shouldn’t be too tough, especially if you lock yourself in a closet and stay away from all media. Actually, the parts of Invisible Touch which rankle the least are when the band acts like the experimental popsters they once were, rather than the hit factory they have become. So, skip the obvious radio cuts like the maudlin ballad, “In Too Deep,” and the assembly-line hooks of “Throwing It All Away” and concentrate on some of the fringe benefits—the Enoesqup Tony Banks synthwash of “Tonight, Tonight, Tonight,” theoverblown-to-the-point-of-hiiarity thematics of the two-part antinuke ditty, “Domino,” Phil Collins reminding us he can still smack a mean tom-tom in “In The Glow of the Night” and the punctuating funk horns of “Anything She Does,” the only place where the band approaches the punch of their last two efforts.

Otherwise, things are pretty bleak, barren and brittle. The LP has the feel of product put together to fill a demand. There’s a lot of musical groping going on. If Peter Gabriel has been accused of trying to compete with exmate Collins’s success, what do we make of the tribal rhythms of “Tonight, Tonight, Tonight,” except maybe that Genesis is just as eager to win some of the critical esteem enjoyed by its one-time lead singer? And how about the sly reference to “comirtg down like a monkey” in the same song? Sound a tad familiar?

For a record that’s bound to sell millions, Invisible Touch is rather depressing. The lyrics are all about gloom, doom and failed love affairs, though all the heartache is, as with Genesis itself, on the surface. As Phil emotes in “Anything She Does,” “You know/That in 20 years or more/You’ll still look the same/As you do today.” Exactly, except, by then, the peninsula of hair on top of Phil Collin’s noggin will have complete split from the mainland and become an island, leaving his shiny pate gleaming in the noonday sun. If that’s not the end of the world as we know it, perhaps the band can change its name from Genesis to Exodus and exit right.

Roy Trakin

CACTUS WORLD NEWS

Urban Beaches (MCA)

U2 fans will love this new band (as presumably Bono & the boys did when they “discovered” Cactus World News and brought them to the attention of recording-industry powers). After all, they say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and even a paragon of ethical integrity like Bono Vox must’ve picked up a few overtures of U2 adulation in CWN’s music.

Cactus World News are as young as U2 used to be, way back around 1980, and they’re every bit as portrait-of-the-artistas-a-young-man earnest. Most of the songs on Urban Beaches are built on either that patented U2 pacifist-martial beat, or those patented U2 swelling choruses, or all of the above.

U2 fans will surely love Cactus World News, but the question for old fogies like myself is whether we really loved U2 in the first place. I’ll admit that I gave U2 a good review of their War in these very pages, but more recently I’ve become depressed that for all their years of success in the biz, U2 still haven’t developed any measureable sense of humor. I find it hard to forgive the unrelentingly grim Bono Vox for insisting that the first “o” in his (stage) name is pronounced with a short inflection, rather than a long in the grand tradition of Sonny Bono and of course “boner,” the First Cause of all rock’n’roll. I’m afraid that Mr. Vox is lost for good to the priests-of-liberalism dynasty that numbers Alan Alda and Sting among its icy lights. 1 Cactus World News, in fact, I have come up with a song title I that inadvertently describes the I U2 school of pop music better I than even a professional I pigeonholer like me could I manage: “Church Of The Cold.” I Or, as C.W.N. vocalist Eoin I McEvey so earnestly puts it: “Finding out all the rules that make me/A member of the church of the cold.” But I’ve got to stop beating Cactus World News with my lack of affection for U2. Besides, Eoin McEvey (who looks even more like Declan MacManus than / do) posed for this album’s liner photo with books by both Malcolm Muggeridge and Saul Bellow in his stack of reading material, so he may have surpassed Bono in the humor dept, already.

And even an old fogey like me is not unmindful of tasty C.W.N. touches like Wayne Sheehy’s ever-kinetic drums, or the softfocus angst of Frank Kearns’s sweet & sour guitars. Did I forget anybody? Yeah, Fergal MacAindris does a solid job on bass, too. So maybe as long as we’re all agreed that we’re worshipping at the Church Of The Cold, Cactus World News is not bad at all.

Richard Riegel