Robert Christgau: Dean of American Rock Critics

Consumer Guide:
  User's Guide
  Grades 1990-
  Grades 1969-89
  And It Don't Stop
Books:
  Book Reports
  Is It Still Good to Ya?
  Going Into the City
  Consumer Guide: 90s
  Grown Up All Wrong
  Consumer Guide: 80s
  Consumer Guide: 70s
  Any Old Way You Choose It
  Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough
Xgau Sez
Writings:
  And It Don't Stop
  CG Columns
  Rock&Roll& [new]
  Rock&Roll& [old]
  Music Essays
  Music Reviews
  Book Reviews
  NAJP Blog
  Playboy
  Blender
  Rolling Stone
  Billboard
  Video Reviews
  Pazz & Jop
  Recyclables
  Newsprint
  Lists
  Miscellany
Bibliography
NPR
Web Site:
  Home
  Site Map
  Contact
  What's New?
    RSS
Carola Dibbell:
  Carola's Website
  Archive
CG Search:
Google Search:
Twitter:
 Maturity is a tough one for pop-music artistes. Enlightenment invariably kicks off an awkward stage. And motherhood can get icky fast. So maybe what's most remarkable about Ray of Light (Maverick/Warner Bros.), on which Madonna confronts all of these career crises at once, is that it ain't half bad. Working with electronica pro William Orbit after bigger names like Tricky turned her megabucks down, Madonna has certainly organized herself a great-sounding album that goes easy on pop ears without resorting to instrumental cliches. And when she sings about s-e-x, on the boy-toy Candy Perfume Girl and the spiritually needy Skin, her old standby doesn't let her down. Still, it's hard to believe that this synthesis of Hollywood karma and radio-friendly dance music will solve her biggest career crisis of all: what the most famous person in the world does for an encore.

With Paul Simon's Capeman gone to its just reward, it's time to pay some mind to another white New Yorker who's been inspired to make salsa his own. On Buster's Spanish Rocket Ship (Island), David Johansen a/k/a Buster Poindexter treats Puerto Rican music as nothing but a party. But from the boisterous Iris Chacon to the tolerant Let's Take It Easy, Johansen's good heart and irrepressible sense of humor guarantee that this party will be fun--and that this fun will do the world more good than most of its pained message music.

Billy Swan, country singer, I Can Help; Percy Sledge, soul singer, When a Man Loves a Woman. One-shot wonders, right? Wrong--important minor artists. Get a full load of Swan's Southern hospitality on The Best of Billy Swan (Epic/Legacy) and Sledge's deep-South intensity on The Very Best of Percy Sledge (Rhino).

Playboy, Mar. 1998

Feb. 1998 Apr. 1998