Consumer Guide Album

Rod Stewart: A Night on the Town [Warner Bros., 1976]
This is Stewart's most ambitious record since Never a Dull Moment four years ago, but its ambitions are only partly fulfilled. If he's gonna start doing big message numbers, he'd better rise above the pathetic liberalism of "Tradewinds," the most overblown song he's ever recorded 'cept maybe for the symphonic version of "Pinball Wizard." And if he's gonna break new ground thematically, as on the "gay" "Killing of Georgie," he'd better come up with slightly less Dylanesque melodies--in the course of comparing Stewart's song with its fraternal twin, "Simple Twist of Fate," I was reminded of just how precise an arrangement can be. B