Consumer Guide Album

The Only Ones: Baby's Got a Gun [Epic, 1980]
Prepunk and for that matter prepub, Peter Perrett may well have been an only one, and he fits in now only because this is such a tolerant and/or commercially desperate time. He's not "power pop," of course--on record, at least, power's got nothing to do with it. With his lazy drawl tightrope-walking on the cusp of the love-death continuum, he's just a perversely if not insincerely wistful rock and roll balladeer who hopes you'll sleep with him and will get peeved if you don't--vulnerably seductive now, but don't be surprised if he quickly starts demanding specialties. B+