Consumer Guide Album

Rupert Holmes: Rupert Holmes [Epic, 1975]
In another time this guy would be writing short stories for Collier's; if he really is a civilized Randy Newman, as some seem to feel, then the emphasis is on the civilized. The giveaway is the voice, devoid of feeling or even eccentricity, and hence inoffensive. Randy Newman is never inoffensive. That so many putative rock critics mistake Holmes's deftness for the real thing only proves how desperate we have become for original intelligence, no matter how shallow. B−