Consumer Guide Album

Tom Robinson: Sector 27 [I.R.S., 1980]
This attempt to fuse TRB's music-hall cheer with postpunk postfunk isn't as innovative as its sources, but it comes across better on record. Robinson has always flattened his flair for melody under one-dimensional rhythms and vocal attack, but here the arty touches--that is, Stevie B.'s perverse little guitar parts--serve what I'd call a "commercial" function if only the record were selling better. And who ever said politics and propaganda were the same thing? A