Consumer Guide Album

Alex Chilton: Like Flies on Sherbert [Peabody, 1980]
Right, this bag of wrecked covers and discarded originals is, what's it say here, "self-indulgent." If Keith Richards or Rat Scabies were to dare such a thing, I'd throw it in the garbage myself. But that don't take nothing away from "Baron of Love, Pt. II"--the opening cut, in which composer Ross Johnson raves distractedly about sex and gore. Or the line about nipples in "Rock Hard." A very bright music nut who knows from the inside how much craziness goes into the most normal-seeming product (he did front the Box Tops, remember), this long-time advertisement for self-abuse doesn't prove craziness is universal. Just makes you forget that things most certainly wouldn't be more fun if it was. B