Consumer Guide Album

Kid Creole and the Coconuts: Wise Guy [Sire/ZE, 1982]
August Darnell has synthesized his polyglot influences so thoroughly you'd think all show music is written over a fast funk bottom. Two of the eight tunes--"Imitation," a sortastar's complaint in disguise, and the mum "Stool Pigeon"--could use some narrative context, but usually it doesn't even matter much that Augie is singing. The end pieces are the wickedest: "Annie, I'm Not Your Daddy," in which he breaks it to her traumatically, and "No Fish Today," the nastiest song about class since "Career Opportunities." A