Jerk Music Critic: Nick Lowe, Jesus of Cool

What is it with snarky rockers and G-d complexes, anyway? (Maybe that's why Columbia chickened out Stateside and called it Pure Pop for Now People, like that really explained the album better.) But no matter what it's called, it's a gas: right on the terminal gasp of glam and the cusp of new wave, with just a dash of doo-wop and soul, the style defies categorization while it simultaneously delights. It's well programmed with a lot of zip (dig the wacked-out Motown riff in "Nutted by Reality" and the rollicking chaos of "I Love The Sound of Breaking Glass") and a little slowness ("Tonight"), and, wow, a heavy helping of humour, like a knowing indictment of the recording industry in "Shake and Pop," the ghoulish "Marie Provost" and of course the Führeriffic "Little Hitler." A precious few songs don't fire on all cylinders (the live pub rocker "Heart of the City" feels an afterthought and "36 Inches High" meanders a bit too much), but there sure aren't many. But wait, there's more! the 2008 UK reissue makes a great album even better by not only reverting to the superior European tracklist, but also adding almost double the music with the different American tracks, surprisingly worthy alternate takes, some B-sides (including the hilarious "I Love My Label") and even the Brinsley Schwartz version of "Cruel To Be Kind." Another overwhelming victory for the Poms! American reissuers should be ashamed. (Content: A couple S- and F-bombs, adult themes and drug references.)

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Express Yourself

The Jerk Music Critic is a collection of amateur music reviews I wrote largely non-professionally between the 1990s and today. Some of these reviews are contemporary and some are retrospective, and a few are rather dated, but all are intended to be free-standing and permanent records of my completely worthless musical opinion. They are presented in no particular order and "new" reviews that occur may actually be simply prior ones I've only now transcribed. Older reviews have been edited to hopefully remove inaccuracies later revealed, as well as add brief content advisories (see "Smash the PMRC") and, where reissues exist with different tracks, brief commentaries on these later additions (the actual star review was not altered).

If you're looking for a specific artist, or just interested to see what I really liked (or really didn't), "When I Break Down" indexes reviews by artist and by number of stars awarded (see "Star Chart" for an explanation).

As we move deeper into the Internet music age where the album format might seem hopelessly antiquated, there is still some artistic value in the LP to those artists who still take advantage of it, and some of these recordings can only be properly appreciated in that context. I hope you enjoy these reviews and recommendations, and don't take them too seriously. — Cameron Kaiser

Star Chart

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An instant classic. Substantially advances/d the state of the art, either technologically, stylistically, or (preferentially) both, and is outstanding music besides. Buy it.

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A excellent album. Nearly every song is a gem; nearly every piece is a winner. Falls short of 5 stars for want of that certain special something, but the difference is in impact, not in musical quality. Buy it.

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Solid. Mostly good songs with a few clinkers. Salvageable with a good playlist. Buy it cheap.

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Mixed. Some good songs stand out, but not enough to make it listenable as a whole. Buy the good songs on iTunes.

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Bad. One or two tracks of even decent quality. Buy the good songs cheap on iTunes.

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How did this get released?

Smash the PMRC

I don't advocate for censorship or unnuanced black and white stickers, but I do advocate for parents being able to raise kids in the way they see fit, which might include introducing albums of controversial yet artistic merit at a point in their child's life when they can better appreciate it. The content summaries are intended to be a very general guide, reflective of only my own personal sensibilities and mine alone, and do not substitute in any way for a parent actually sitting down and listening to the album themselves. If you excessively rely on my content advisories, then I'm the one raising your kid, and you really don't want that.