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Marshall Crenshaw is one of the endless line of "pop" geniuses who
aren't very popular. Each of the three albums after his 1982 debut
sold a little worse than the one before it, and although Crenshaw
never lost his touch, each seemed more confused and depressed. Not
Good Evening (Warner Bros.). Having given up on servicing
the pop market outside, he's free to express the pop sensibility
inside--still sweet and ecstatic, he mourns the romantic certainties
of a bespectacled adolescence more knowingly with every year. Writing
less and singing plenty, Crenshaw takes over songs by Richard Thompson
(sarcastic), John Hiatt (lost), and Bobby Fuller (transcendent),
with the sincere soul that always underpinned his harmonies now
dominant. Chances are this one won't sell either--Warners quickly
picked its worst and most "commercial" cut as the single, and it
stiffed. But that's secondary--he'll be pop till he dies.
Playboy, July 1989
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