Word: buffett
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...GOOD to be true; you knew it. Three years ago everyone was listening to ELO and Jimmy Buffett and all of a sudden there was this guy Elvis Costello singing about the end of the world. Elvis became, like his eponym, the King of Rock and Roll, only now they didn't call it rock and roll, they called it the New Wave. Because it was new--that was what made it great, that somehow from this extraordinarily restricted and limited form, when all the possibilities seemed exhausted, these lunatic geniuses brought forth the rock and roll Lazarus...
Also out are new Eric Carmen, J. Geils Band, Santana, Queen, Jimmy Buffett, Tom Waits, Ronnie Laws and Jesse Colin Young albums, but hell, I can't review everything, I have my own Christmas cheer to ingest. And, no, Donna Summer does not have a disco version of Jingle Bells--Jingle, gasp, oh, oh, a, eee, bells, Jingle, screech bells--out, so rest easy. Put in a good word with the Santa on the comer for me, but make sure he isn't from one of those cults first
What's worse is Buffett's recycling in lieu of new ideas. Like "Cowboy in the Jungle" from the new album. It's a vagabond expatriate song with a couple of funny lines, but he did the same idea much better last year in his cover of Steve Good-man's "Banana Republics." And the title cut from Son of a Son of a Sailor is almost a bibliography of the half-dozen sailing paeans he's written before...
Basically, though, Buffett's gone pop. For the good times. There's something to be said for artists' suffering: When they're as well off as Jimmy Buffett they don't hang out around docks and slums and all-nite Mini-Marts any more: this year it's casinos and yachtbasins. That's how he's gone from songs like "The Great Peanut Butter Conspiracy," about shoplifting in the hard times, to songs like Son of a Son's "My African Friend." He meets an African guy gambling in Martinique, they get drunk and Buffett scrapes himself up off some...
...JIMMY BUFFETT'S GONE for the good life, sailing the islands, boiled shrimp and cold beer, married to Jane Slagsvol whom he's loved for five years, with Tom McGuane for a brother-in-law and what all. Son of a Son will do no damage to his credit rating--it's a sure AM smash, and you're gonna hear it wafting from the dorm windows come warm weather...