Consumer Guide Album

Bob Dylan: Shot of Love [Columbia, 1981]
Dylan's abandonment of Muscle Shoals for the fleshpots of El Lay--Benmont Tench! Ron Wood! Ringo Starr on tom tom!--has a reassuring aura of apostasy, which may be why I think this year's born-again boilerplate "sounds better" than last year's. But two songs that belong in the lower reaches of his canon don't hurt. "Property of Jesus," about how bad it is to mock born-againers, has Staple Singers written all over it. "Lenny Bruce" is apostasy down to its reverent setting. B-