Consumer Guide Album

The Pooh Sticks: The Great White Wonder [Sweet Virginia, 1991]
I don't approve of retro, never have. But when smart young things discover crappy old records like Frampton Comes Alive! and great old records like Rust Never Sleeps, it can be infectious. The grain of eager pop greed in Hue's Brit-wimp voice, augmented by the earnest craft that enables Paul to stick whole Neil Young solos (copied, not sampled) into borrowed Strangeloves songs, reestablishes the fading distinction between parody and celebration in order to transcend it at a higher level of consciousness--an unselfconscious one. It's even possible they want to be rich and famous. A-