Consumer Guide Album

Village People: Go West [Casablanca, 1979]
At first I dismissed this as market fatigue--it's hard to act like you're still discovering your formula on your fourth album in twenty-one months. With no help from a peaked-sounding Victor Willis--shouters should avoid even the appearance of laryngitis--it came off as a tuneless disco tribute to John Philip Sousa that omitted the "Stars and Stripes Forever" cover only because Jacques Morali doesn't control Sousa's publishing. But now I kind of enjoy it. Cruisin' was dumb, and this is an advance--a quantum leap in dumbness, without even risque puns to distract from Victor's metronomic cries. Although I have my doubts about this "skin-diving" stuff myself. B-