Consumer Guide Album

Richard Lloyd: Alchemy [Elektra, 1979]
Lloyd really has his pop down, and this record never fails to cheer me when it comes on--the songwriting and guitar textures are consistently tuneful and affecting. I don't mind that he always sings off-key, either--part of the charm of his pop is how loose it is. But the voice is so wacked-out that even if you'd never seen Lloyd lurching around a stage or matching magic with Tom Verlaine you'd sense that where for the Shoes or the Beat teen romance is a formal stricture, for him it's an evasion--he's just not telling us what he knows. B+