Bryan Adams So Far So Good: How He Became One of the Best-Selling Artists of All Time

Rock and roll still looks like pop rampant from here--which is stillHonduras, with Wham! and Julian Lennon on the maids' radio in thekitchen. I'm willing to accept the trend--certainly there's anexuberance in Aretha Franklin's (Narada Michael Walden's?) calculatedhitcraft that I don't find in even the smart part of the disloyalopposition. But as I apply myself to all the other craftspeople thezeitgeist has thrown our way, I understand why the disloyal oppositioncould give a shit.BRYAN ADAMS: Reckless (A&M) The megabuck stopshere. Maybe I'll let Bruce Springsteen teach me how to hear JohnCougar Mellencamp, but damned if I'm going to let John CougarMellencamp teach me how to hear Bryan Adams. From antipunkdiscowavestrut to Flashdance homage, he's a generic American hunk, onlywhiter because he's Canadian. Where Sammy Hagar flaunts hisanticommunism and Don Henley flaunts his mouth, Adams flaunts nothingmore and nothing less than his young reliable bod. Like all theabove-mentioned good and bad he shares a mysterious nostalgia for therecent past with a lot of people who aren't half dead yet, at leastchronologically. And more than any of them he has real problemsrelaxing, which puts him square in the soul-as-will-and-idea traditionof Lou Gramm, Pat Boone, Sophie Tucker, and so manyothers. C MINUSJOHN ANDERSON: Tokyo, Oklahoma (Warner Bros.) Andersonloves a good lyric the way David Johansen loves a good lyric, the wayWillie Nelson loves a good tune--and he loves a good tune, too. With"Twelve Bar Blues" and "A Little Rock 'n' Roll and Some Country Blues"defeating their billing and the title tune crossing "Fujiyama Mama"and "Promised Land," this is the rock and roll album I was afraid he'dnever make--he's allowed three slow songs, especially when one is assad as "Down in Tennessee." A MINUSWALTER BECKER/DONALD FAGEN: The Early Years (PVC)Eternally faithful to early Dan, I hoped to descry the lineaments ofunspoiled genius in these 1968-1971 demos, but all I got wasdemos. Between Fagen's scratch vocals and three grooveless drummerswho sound relieved to remember their parts, these are songs castingabout for a form--that is, for Gary Katz, whose smooth swing suitedthem far better than the bare bones Kenny Vance resorts to. Worthsalvaging: "Don't Let Me In," in which they turn their collegiatecynicism on themselves for once. CLEONARD COHEN: Various Positions (Passport) With a newcrop of beautiful losers arising out of the latest bohemia asinexorably as ailanthus out of a vacant lot, the man who wrote thebook is worth attending, because he's not bitter. After all, righteousanger has never been his long suit, and what does he have to be bitterabout? At fifty, he's still living comfortably off the fruits of hisspiritual torment. Of course, not every loser is so talented, orresilient, The hymn "If It Be Your Will" and the fable "The Captain"are as rich and twisted as anything in his career, and "The Law" doesjustice to his patented romantic irony, which by now has a soothingglow. B PLUS[Later]COMMODORES: Nightshift (Motown) Title tune's prettyslick as rock and roll heaven songs go, but ever since Lionel--whothey could have used on "The Woman in My Life"--they've been too tamefor their own good. A new singer from Heatwave obviously isn't goingto change that. When they thank Dennis Lambert "for being so good atwhat you do," you should remember that what he does isschlock. C PLUSSAM COOKE: Live at the Harlem Square Club, 1963 (RCAVictor) Some people think live albums capture the essence of rockand roll; I don't even think live shows do. That may be why thisrecord, which yea verily doth document a little-noted aspect ofCooke's amazing career, leaves me mostly tepid. But I blame it onheadlong show-band arrangements so single-minded they soon underminewhat conceptual interest inheres in the transformation of this seminalcrossover teen dream into fit fare for the over-twenty-ones in a Miamir&b club. I like grit as much as the next postprimitivist, butgood grit admits interpretive flair just like any other mode--morethan Cooke puts into these hits, originally designed to downplay hisgritty side. BD.O.A.: Let's Wreck the Party (Alternative Tentacles)Decking their cover with quotes from Durutti and Chagall and sloganslike "Bring Back the Future" and "We Don't Need Unity . . . We NeedCo-Operation," these Vancouver lifers have obviously made something oftheir hardcore anarchism. If only the music had as much spirit. Amidthe slightly Britified metal-mania so many professional punks driftinto, the great moments are stolen--a speed-anthem cover of "Singin'in the Rain" and a "Hot Blooded" rip calling for a "General Strike."But since property is theft, maybe that's as it shouldbe. B MINUSEURYTHMICS: Be Yourself Tonight (RCA Victor) The newwave's answer to Shirley Bassey is finally connecting with those of uswho won't settle for voice-plus-hooks not because she shows signs ofhaving a soul, but because she shows signs of having a brain. Ofcourse, the two go together--her lush, brassy emotionalism is morecoherent partly because it's grounded, less taken with alienation as away of life. Dave Stewart's guitar doesn't hurt either. And neither doAretha, Stevie, or Elvis. B PLUS[Later]ARETHA FRANKLIN: Who's Zoomin' Who? (Arista) It seems sosimple now that it's happened, but let's face it--she's been trying tosell out this big for at least ten years. And take my word for it--shehasn't done anything near this good in over a dozen. It couldn't havehappened without the top-forty revival, and it couldn't have happenedwithout Narada Michael Walden, who unhesitatingly plugged his firstlegend into one pop format after another and came up with classicsalmost every time. From lead rocker to hooked ballad to Caribe Richiecarnivalesque, these songs go no deeper than Franklin can make them bybreathing, but their instant inevitability could keep this album alivefor years. And when somebody like Aretha Franklin goes multiplatinum,the world rejoices. AHOWARD JONES: Dream Into Action (Elektra) Smarter thanCat Stevens. Sexier than Norman Vincent Peale. But not vice versa. Andless soulful than either. DGLADYS KNIGHT & THE PIPS: Life (Columbia) Thereflectiveness of her interpretations has never extended to her choiceof material--the honest journeywoman in her must prefer contractsongwriting. So she does what she's always done over "contemporary"settings that don't clash or mesh or otherwise call attention tothemselves. Amid the various shades of schlock and dancy compromise,the best songs are those she wrote with her coproducers, Sam Dees andBubba Knight, and the only notable one is "Strivin'," the moststraight-up bourgie boogie since "Bon Bon Vie." Even at its mostcommitted, professionalism can get pretty boring. B MINUSMOFUNGO: Frederick Douglass (Twin Tone/Coyote) Whatwould a stranger make of this friendly but apparently overwrought andtuneless cacophony? Wish I were sure s/he'd find it as winning as Ido. Not counting "El Salvador," this is the only time in eight yearsthey've treated themselves to a mix forceful enough to clarify theapparently casual musicianship that goes into what are actually canny,complex, and suggestive structures. Even when you have no idea justwhat words they're hanging from titles like "Migrant Assembly LineWorkers" and "Our Days of Weakness Are Over," you know they likegrunge, a good joke, and other people. You know they're pissed off,too. Time: 29:51. B PLUS[Later: A-]ALISON MOYET: Alf (Columbia) Hooking up withImagination's Swain & Jolley for hologram soul that takesadvantage of her giant voice as well as their cushiony electrodance,she gives off all the right signs, romantic victimization prominentamong them. I don't believe a word, even though I know it could all be"true." Maybe an aura of artificiality is the point--do I take LeeeJohns literally? C PLUSROCKIN' SYDNEY: My Zydeco Shoes Got the Zydeco Blues (Maisonde Soul) All over America eccentrics match doggerel to jingle andthen importune song publishers for their pot of gold. Sidney Simiencommits his creations to vinyl, but with his big talk of "Sidney'shits" and "Talkin' over," his world is no less wishful, except for onething--he made his breakthrough. A small one, to be sure, but howeveryou spell it "My Toot-Toot" shows off his sporadic lyrical flair andis already a New Orleans standard. Not that there's any compellingreason to hear the way Sidney does it, especially since he plays allthe instruments himself (drums last, sounds like). His album is ofvalue primarily as a specimen of guileless folk ambition, of a manstruggling to adapt a local tradition to what he understands of thegreat outside. B MINUSSCRITTI POLITTI: Cupid & Psyche 85 (Warner Bros.)Green's Gallic allusion of choice--the name of his pubbery, infact--is "jouissance," but although he's playful and verbal enough tomake it his own, he falls short in the climax department. I'd suggesta less gushy conceit: esprit. The high-relief production and birdliketunes and spry little keyb arrangements and hippety-hoppety beat andarchly ethereal falsetto add up to a music of amazing lightness andwit that's saved from any hint of triviality by wordplay whose delightin its own turns is hard to resist. Usually I suspect lyricists whorefuse to be clear of never having figured out what they mean, buthere the puns are so clever and incessant that they become an end inthemselves. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Green knows what hewants to say. A MINUSSHANNON: Do You Wanna Get Away (Mirage) Her pleasantlyexpressive voice free of inconvenient conviction, she slipsunassumingly from stance to stance--fantasy lover to wronged CosmoGirl to horny wildcat to committed lifemate. Thus she never gets inthe way of true stars Chris Barbosa and Mark Liggett, whose productionis consistently engaging but less peaky than back when they wereearning the right to develop their property. B MINUSSONIC YOUTH: Bad Moon Rising (Homestead) They're sure todisagree--what else are they good for?--but despite all theirapocalyptic integrity and unmediated whoziwhatsis, the achievement oftheir first halfway decent record is strictly formal: simple, rhythmicsongs that neither disappear beneath nor get the better of theclanging and grinding of their brutal late-industrialguitars. Whatever credibility the guitars lend to their no doubtpainful but nonetheless hackneyed manic depression is undermined bytheir usual sociopathic fantasies, and in the end the music isn't uglyor ominous or bombs bursting midair. It's just interesting. BTHE WEATHER GIRLS: Big Girls Don't Cry (Columbia) At amoment when soul is resurfacing as an ear-catching set of usages, aform basically independent of its original sources, these fatladies--abetted by a new production team, and so it goes--take it onestep further and make soul a cartoon, with the title cut themasterstroke. They'll cop material anywhere--debut single's from JesseWinchester. And if at first their tricks seem inspired, by the timeyou get to Creedence and Neil Sedaka they're beginning to soundobvious. BWHAM!: Make It Big (Columbia) Though George Michaelseems more swellheaded than one would wish in a superstar (or acoworker), he does take care of business! His Isleys cover is lessstriking than his ersatz Motown! How many other pretty boys can makesuch a claim?! BWOMACK & WOMACK: Radio M.U.S.C. Man (Elektra) Justhow low-profile the new songs are is made clear when a sweet cover of"Here Comes the Sun" snaps you from drugged semiconscious enjoyment tofull attention. I love the relaxed groove and wavering back-porchharmonies that go into their unique sound--lazy, tender, patient,long-suffering, tired of fighting. But they don't have to get by onatmosphere. B PLUSVillage Voice, Aug. 27, 1985

Bryan Adams So Far So Good Great

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