Consumer Guide Album

Mick Jagger: She's the Boss [Columbia, 1985]
History may absolve him. Jeff Beck earns his fucked-up legend here, and Bill Laswell puts together several bands--like Beck-Martinez-Hancock-Shakespeare-Dunbar-Ponce on "Running Out of Luck"--that should only tour. So maybe a hundred years from now folks who've never read People will admire the timbral virtuosity and breath control of the man atop the tracks. But Jagger has become such an overbearing public presence that I for one find it impossible to care about his romantic vagaries no matter how hard he leather-lungs. It would be going too far, unfortunately, to say he's a joke. But the only thing left for him to do with his persona is burlesque it, which is why the title track is the only one that's any fun. And as my wife complains, he probably thinks it describes the way things are with him and Jerry. C