Christgau's Consumer Guide

As is my practice when the Pazz & Jop Critics' Poll approaches, this month I fill out my own 1986 list and respond to my colleagues'. In a more vituperative mood I might have made poor young no-domestic-label Throwing Muses my Must to Avoid. But I have to admit they're trying, and anyway, both Pick Hits are newsworthy--I didn't think I'd ever see an A record from either again. Proves that technology still has its musical uses.

BILLY BRAGG: Talking With the Taxman About Poetry (Elektra) How could one deny such a fine young lad, especially with his harsh guitar and gratifying piano or trumpet reflecting his Clashy lineage when one thinks about it? That depends on how much one resents having to think about it. The lyrics are another matter--they're made to be thought about. Only soon one realizes that the politics, his forte if not his raison d'être, are surprisingly clunky. And that when it comes to the cons and pros of getting married he never misses a trick. B PLUS [Later]

T BONE BURNETT (Dot) Burnett's foray into straight country is right purty, but it could stand to get a little bent. Abjuring strings, backup choruses, trap sets, puns, and sales potential, it takes the neo out of neotraditionalism, and though I smiled when T-Bone bought his baby "clothes of rayon," I was disturbed to realize that even his synthetics are ensconced in the past. B PLUS

CROWDED HOUSE (Capitol) Art-pop is like the dB's and XTC, when a fascination with craft spirals up and in until it turns into an aestheticist obsession. Split Enz was an art-rock band gone pop--sillier, crasser, more full of itself--and Neil Finn's California-based trio dispenses only with the silly. Hooks you can buy anywhere these days, and for directness you might as well apply straight to Bruce Hornsby--beyond the occasional hint of guitar anarchy, this is product for sure. C PLUS

FIRE TOWN: In the Heart of the Heart of the Country (Beat) No oblique harmonies or trick meters or underhanded lyrics to prove how arty they are, just a blunt collection of pop songs that hauls out the hooks and hits you over the head with them thump-thump-thump. Which could and does get annoying when you're not feeling complaisant, but for the most part has its unfashionable charm. If you think the Smithereens are something, I dare you to play "Rain on You" three times. And if you don't, I double-dare you. B PLUS

DOUG E. FRESH AND THE GET FRESH CREW: Oh, My God! (Reality) With the outrageous anticrime message of "Nuthin'" and the star-time joyride of "Lovin' Every Minute of It" surrounding his Big Hit, I'd call this a one-sided album if I wanted to be kind. But I don't, not when he dedicates it to G-O-D in the absence of Slick Rick and informs the ladies in the house that abortion (rhymes with mind distortion) is of "the devil." Buy the single, which doesn't put the Supreme Being so high in the mix. Inspiration Verse: "Cause I'm like Moses, no one knows this/The way I dress and my lifestyle shows this." B MINUS

GEORGIA SATELLITES (Elektra) If you love "Keep Your Hands to Yourself" for its own raunchy self rather than appreciating the alternative it afford to Bon Jovi and Cyndi Lauper, you want this album. Opening the B is a bottleneck rocker that slides as hard as "Happy," and while nothing else matches the inspiration of hit and follow-up, these guys do know how to put out those two-guitar basics. They just don't know why--except to provide an alternative to Bon Jovi and Cyndi Lauper. "Happy," after all, never pretends to be anything more than a change of pace, and because Keith Richards understands its limits, he's lining up a new front man right now. B

JIMI HENDRIX: Band of Gypsys 2 (Capitol) I suppose side one of this belated sequel wasn't side two of the original because Jimi had a personal or Capitol a financial stake in such brotherhood bromides as "Power of Soul" and "We Gotta Live Together." But for better or worse he's a lot more impassioned working apolitical traditions--debuting "Hear My Train a Comin'" or reprising "Foxy Lady" or letting Buddy Miles cover Howard Tate's "Stop." What's more, the Hendrix classics by the Mitch Mitchell edition of Band of Gypsys on side two sound a lot fresher now than they would have fifteen years ago, and not just because pressing techniques have taken such a leap. Which makes the second first by me. A MINUS

JIMI HENDRIX: Jimi at Monterey (Reprise) Since I've oft been chastised for suggesting that the JHE's U.S. splashdown was less than extraterrestrial, I'm surprised at the yes-we-have-no-hosannas greeting this verbatim version. Maybe it's because only three of the ten tracks are previously unreleased. Maybe it's because after years of repackaging only suckers and acolytes get hot for another live Hendrix album. Or maybe it's because Jimi speeds alarmingly, Mitch Mitchell keeps tripping over his sticks, and "Like a Rolling Stone" is patently hokey. Nevertheless, such extramusical factors as historical verisimilitude and tinless audio incline me to charity. Peace-and-love-and-egomania at its most far out. B PLUS

JIMI HENDRIX: Johnny B. Goode (Capitol) Like Hendrix's other 1986 releases, this budget-priced mini-LP (time: 26:08) is vivid testimony to the uses of digital mastering for archival music, especially music recorded direct to two-track. "The Star Spangled Banner" and "Machine Gun" occupy the B, and while there's no need to own either twice, the powerful sound is at least a reason. On the A, a compressed, guitar-heavy "Voodoo Chile" and an intense "Watchtower" surround the disc's only previously released (though long unavailable) track, which provides the album title for good reason--it's the definitive version of the definitive guitar anthem. Roll over Chuck Berry and tell Keith Richards the news. A MINUS

INI KAMOZE: Pirate (Mango) If reggae all sounds the same, this is something else. Kamoze's vocals match Richard Dunn's sheets of synth, which are more art-rock than lover's rock. "Betty Brown's Mother" is a long overdue answer to Ernie K-Doe and sequel to Herman's Hermits. And Robbie Shakespeare's riddim guitar leads the sliding headlong groove of "Rough." B PLUS

LADYSMITH BLACK MAMBAZO: Inala (Shanachie) Unless I learn Zulu (long shot) or someone starts providing trots (great idea), chances are my favorite Ladysmith album will always be the first one I listened to, 1984's Induku Zethu. But your favorite will probably be the first one you listen to, and if you were busy in 1984 you might help Paul Simon do a good deed and start here. By now you should know what you'll get: a male a cappella chorus comprising two families of brothers and cousins in which Joseph Shabalala's cunning tenor darts in and out of the harmonic brush. Though they can dance to it, you probably can't, but unless you're hopelessly culture-bound you'll soon hear how beautiful it is. As a crossover gesture there's one song in English, full of sly domestic observations that provide welcome insight into how they deploy both words and sounds. A MINUS

THE LEAVING TRAINS: Kill Tunes (SST) Where once Falling James Moreland inclined his raggedy band toward blues, here he rediscovers his roots: punk. If the whole album were punchy put-downs it wouldn't be the answer to our problems. But it'd give Falling James's poetry a break. B PLUS

LOS LOBOS: By the Light of the Moon (Slash) These guys are a world-class band. If they want to go Motown, who wouldn't? If they want to downplay the accordion, they have the guitars to compensate. But if they think pop means compassionate generalizations after the manner of John Cougar Mellencamp, they're selling themselves short. Though they're less confused for sure, with a gift for snapshot images that suggest the dimensions of suffering in this trouble land of ours, only on "The Hardest Time" do they drive that suffering all the way home. Leaving us with world-class jukebox grooves and vocals and some affecting protest songs. A MINUS

NEW MODEL ARMY: The Ghost of Cain (Capitol) If Tom Robinson had been young and proletarian enough to want the TRB to sound like the Clash, this oi band gone pop is how it might have come out. After three albums their gift for the anthem far exceeds, for instance, Easterhouse's, as in the anti-American "51st State" and the anti-'76 "Heroes." And though their vigilante rhetoric and doubts about terrorism have some young reds thinking fascist dupe, they're just working-class guys whose left instincts are ahead of their ideology--which I hope never shrugs off street crime or package bombs. A MINUS

RICHARD THOMPSON: Daring Adventures (Polydor) I don't think it's the material and I hope it's not Thompson--with nuevo roots hack Mitchell Froom introducing his charge to the band and then saying go, there's no way to be sure. Somebody put those guitar breaks in an emulator right now. B

THROWING MUSES (4AD) When friends turn psychotic, I withdraw. I haven't found black leotards sexy since I broke up with Sheila in 1962. I'm rarely persuaded that verbal dissociation reflects any social problems but the poet's own. So while I'm happy to grant the originality and even craft of Kristen Hersh's quavery free-form folk-punk, I'd do the same for the art of H.P. Lovecraft, Anaïs Nin, or Diamanda Galas. Fans of whom will pay more mind to Hersh's buzz than I do. C

LOUDON WAINWRIGHT III: More Love Songs (Demon import) With regret and trepidation, I'd venture that divorce has been good for his songwriting--after almost a decade of hit-and-miss, this is his second straight to lay down an attitude. The two tracks that tackle the split head-on aren't clever enough for Nashville, which with this clever bastard is a plus. On the other hand, the wit of "Man's World" is subsumed by its antifeminist rancor, so that after "Unhappy Anniversary" side two rides on attitude alone. Which is no reason he should have to resort to the King of America for U.S. distribution. B PLUS [Later]

XTC: Skylarking (Geffen) Imagine Sgt. Pepper if McCartney hadn't needed Lennon--if he hadn't been such a wet--and you'll get an inkling of what these insular popsters have damn near pulled off. Granted, there's barely a hint of overarching significance, but after all, this isn't 1967. With Todd Rundgren sequencing and twiddling those knobs, they continue strong for the first nine or ten (out of fourteen) songs. Only when the topics become darker and more cosmic do they clutter things with sound and whimsy; as long as they content themselves with leisurely, Shelleyan evocations of summer love and the four seasons, they'll draw you into their world if you give them the chance. And come on, couldn't you use a vacation. A MINUS [Later]

Additional Consumer News

The time has come for me to say good-bye to an actual-count 27 1986 albums. Lured on by past performance or current word-of-mouth or even a terrific cut here and there (farewell "Amoeba Hop," "She Said the Same Things to Me," "Don't Leave Without Taking Your Silver"), I played every one twice or more--sometimes much more. But now I must follow the ever vanishing horizon. R.I.P.: Johnny Adams: After Dark (Rounder); Bananarama: True Confessions (London); Christmas: In Excelsior Dayglo (Big Time); Chico DeBarge (Motown); Dumptruck: Positively (Big Time); Dobie Gray: From Where I Stand (Capitol); I-Three: Beginning (EMI America); Millie Jackson: An Imitation of Love (Jive); George Jones: Wine Colored Roses (Epic); Stanley Jordan: Standards Volume One (Blue Note); Christine Lavin: Beau Woes (Philo); Let's Active: Big Plans for Everybody (I.R.S.); the Lucy Show: Mania (Big Time); Taj Mahal: Taj (Gramavision); John McCutcheon/Si Kahn: Signs of the Times (Rounder); the Neighborhoods: The High Hard One (Restless); Rick Nelson: Memphis Sessions (Epic); Billy Ocean: Love Zone (Jive); Shop Assistants (Chrysalis import); Leroy Sibbles: Mean While (Attic import); Siouxsie and the Banshees: Tinderbox (Geffen); Shipworth and Turner (Warner Bros.); David Thomas: Monster Walks the Winter Lake (Twin/Tone); Irma Thomas: The New Rules (Rounder); Times Social Club: Vicious Rumors (Danya); Wham! Music From the Edge of Heaven (Columbia); Yo La Tengo: Ride the Tiger (Coyote).

Village Voice, Feb. 24, 1987

Feb. 3, 1987

Mar. 31, 1987