Consumer Guide Album

The Cranberries: To the Faithful Departed [Island, 1996]
In which the deserving pop stars discover noise and politics simultaneously, and nuts to any part-of-the-problem who preferred them when they knew their dreamy place, right? Wrong. Tragically but also irritatingly, Dolores O'Riordan indulges all the vices people too stupid for Woody Guthrie or Linton Kwesi Johnson say politics bring out in music: she's strident, moralistic, simple-minded, full of herself. Not only is she shocked to discover that wars are caused by, I would never have guessed, "political pride" and "territorial greed," but she thinks she's a better person for telling Tchaikovsky the news. Better than you. Better than me. Better than Tchaikovsky. And much, much better than Alanis Morissette. C+