Consumer Guide Album

Clint Black: The Hard Way [RCA, 1992]
Country music is for those old or repressed enough to care deeply about monogamy--one-on-one love in all its passion, comfort, consternation, impossibility, and routine. That's why I doubt the Nashville hunks have siphoned much support from Nirvana, Madonna, or Public Enemy--their targets are Richard Marx and Bryan Adams. Still, this is a sad one. Spoiled by fame or his own manly profile--he looks so craggy up against his Knots Landing wifey on the cover of People--a guy who got Nashville to notice him with terse neoclassicist regrets gets Hollywood to bank him with soggy pseudoromantic homilies. Imagine how tritely condescending "A Woman Has Her Way" could be and you'll know what sentiments Clint considers suitable to a matinee idol. C