Consumer Guide Album

Eddy Grant: Killer on the Rampage [Portrait, 1983]
There's an expediency to Grant's songwriting--try "Latin Love Affair," or the equally routine "Funky Rock 'n' Roll," or a rhyme like "My heart does a tango/I love you like a mango"--that makes it hard to believe he's a hero. Instead of drawing some Caribbean analogy, I'd compare him to the Isley Brothers--artist-entrepreneurs with good intentions and a good assembly line. Of course, there's a ramshackle quality to the assembly line that saves even its most expedient product from slickness, and this is far from that--except on the hard-to-find Live at Notting Hill import, his good intentions have never been more out front. B+