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Head Thompson Twin Tom Bailey says he's tired of complaining about theproblems of the world, so onHere's to Future Days (Arista),he's decided to add to them instead. Yup, it's another one of thoseEnglish positivity albums, and what hath Howard Jones wrought? WhatBailey hath wrought is a much less graceful record than that horrible,negative oldInto the Gap, which I always thought was prettylightweight myself. Love is great stuff, but beware of rich pop starstelling you it's all you need--which Bailey does in so many words onthis record.
ZZ Top'sEliminator was a loud boogie album in heavy-metaloverdrive that sold 5,000,000 U.S. copies almost by accident after itfound its legs on MTV. The follow-up,Afterburner (Warner), isnowhere near as modest or as pure--it's expressly designed to becomethe biggest-selling rock LP ever, and the only thing that holds itssongs together is airplay potential. There's an imitation of GlennFrey ballad on top of an imitation AC/DC screamer, synthesizers andsyndrums all over the place and--just to prove they haven't lost theirsense of humor--a new dance called the Velcro Fly. In short, scatteredstuff from three guys who've never exactly made eclecticism a byword.
In the Seventies, Tom Waits was an L.A. beatnikmanqué whodrank too much and made cult inroads in the let's-get-wastedmarket. But his music lurched from hip to bathetic, and he needed aneditor more than Jack Kerouac. Now he lives sober in New York with hiswife and kid, and for once, virtue has been rewarded. Rather thanlosing his edge, he's gained one: The jazzy accompaniment he usuallyfavors has taken on a Weillish abrasiveness that underlines his almostBrechtian lyrical distance from the underworlds he once celebrated sosoggily. His newRain Dogs (Island), all 19 tracks and 53minutes of it, proves that straightening up and flying right doesn'talways turn you into a cornball.
Playboy, Feb. 1986
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