Consumer Guide Album

James Taylor: Gorilla [Warner Bros., 1975]
This is no better than Mud Slide Slim (several good songs if you care about James's agonies) or One Man Dog (several interesting experiments if you care about James's ideas), and although it is better than Walking Man, so is The Best of the Cowsills. Basically a solid piece of singer-songwriter product--I might actively enjoy "Lighthouse" or "Angry Blues" if someone else sang them, and I enjoy "Gorilla" and "Mexico" now. So why do his devotees regard it as a heartening comeback? Because its desecration of Marvin Gaye has propelled it into the top ten? Or because they never cared about his agonies or ideas either? C+