Consumer Guide Album

Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers: Rock & Roll With the Modern Lovers [Beserkley, 1977]
This all-acoustic record is even further in general tough-mindedness from Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers than that fey testament was from The Modern Lovers; it defines the difference between a child who is cute and a child who knows adults think children are cute. Sometimes I think I should hate it. But in fact I don't, because its self-indulgence represents not the manipulative arrogance of a star but rather the craziness of an almost powerless case of arrested development, and you can hear that. However unattractive a child Richman may be, he does convey the fragile lyricism only children are capable of. B+