Consumer Guide Album

Malcolm McLaren: Duck Rock [Island, 1983]
McLaren knows how to record African music for Western ears, and the ebullient tunes he's collected here more than make up for his annoyance quotient. But the intrusions of the World's Famous Supreme Team, not to mention the featured vocalist, are annoying nevertheless. And when "Song for Chango," which has existed since "before Jesus Christ was born," gets credited like almost all the other compositions to Malc and producer Trevor Horn, I wish he'd thought to mention which specific Africans contributed to which specific tracks. Culture may be collective, but (in this culture) wealth ain't. B+