Consumer Guide Album

Fun Boy Three: The Fun Boy Three [Chrysalis, 1982]
This spinoff stretches the Specials even thinner--so thin it's like a minimalist statement, as if chants and jingles were the music of the people. And though "The Lunatics" is the only track I'm hooked on (I sing it for anyone within earshot and sound like Robert Goulet by comparison), it might be novelty album of the year if all the others achieved the rudimentary, skeptical charm of "Faith, Hope and Charity" and "The Telephone Always Rings." B