Consumer Guide Album

Nils Lofgren: Nils [A&M, 1979]
If Lofgren's early mini-Western, "Rusty Gun," was the modestly laconic offering of an up-and-comer who remembered, then "No Mercy," the boxing melodrama now getting airplay, is the rodomontade of a shoulda-been-a-contender. I bet cocomposer Lou Reed wrote the best line, but Nils sings it with indubitable bitterness: "I thought you were being ironic when you ripped your jeans." C+