Consumer Guide Album

Michelle Shocked: Captain Swing [Mercury, 1989]
First line of the last one was "When I grow up I want to be an old woman," first line of this one is "God is a real estate developer." Last time she stuck to received country/folk-rock, this time she essays horn arrangements that got lost in the mail. I appreciate the genderfucks (she's hetero here, homo there, and male when you mess with her sister) and could go for a few of the love songs (the long-suffering "Silent Ways" in its current incarnation, the long-suffering "Sleep Keeps Me Awake" and roving "On the Greener Side" gone to heaven). But on the whole this is too arch, too busy, too artistic, too political, succumbing to the overreach that always beckons when you have greatness thrust upon you. B