Consumer Guide Album

Andrew Gold: All This and Heaven Too [Asylum, 1978]
Gold is Barry Manilow in a flannel shirt, and that the cover depicts him in white tie only compounds the offense. Who but the ultimate session men would sing such I'm-OK lyrics in a blues-country pop-slop style so unfettered by details of personality? In early 1977, after Elektra/Asylum made music history by raising the list price of the new Queen LP 14 percent, E/A prexy Steve Wax defended the move in terms of development capital--the profits from Queen were needed to support the label's uncommercial artists. One of Wax's examples: Andrew Gold. Who do you suppose will be promoted with the profits from Gold's $7.98 LP? The fusioneers of the label's new "jazz" line? Or Warren Zevon? C-