Consumer Guide Album

The Official Music of the XXIIIrd Olympiad Los Angeles 1984 [Columbia, 1984]
Though Olympic ideology valorizes what Philip Glass vacuously designates "shared humanity," you'd never guess it from the unprecedented procession of pompous asses (more than 200 Oscar and Grammy nominations among them) Lee Guber and Jon Peters have gathered together for this unprecedented display of El Lay hegemony. Only Herbie Hancock suggests by choice of players or style that the concept of international might extend beyond Giorgio Moroder and Foreigner. And only Hancock-Laswell-Susu-Dieng's "Junku" suggests that games involve play as well as the striving egomania summed up so eloquently in this classic Moroder-Zito-Engemann couplet: "Reach out for the medal/Reach out for the goal" (or is it gold?). The Russians were right, folks, and not just because Guber/Peters don't like balalaikas. D+