Consumer Guide Album

Smokey Robinson: Warm Thoughts [Tamla, 1980]
The tardy top-forty success of "Crusin'"--plus maybe, who knows, an evocative title à la A Quiet Storm--has created the impression that the follow-up album's the comeback, but commercially and artistically that was last year's Where There's Smoke . . . Smokey's songwriting has sharpened, but not so it isn't enhanced by a nice ersatz medium dance tempo. Granted, you'd probably enjoy these songs just as much if all you did was make out to them, which seems to be the idea. But that's expecting a lot of the old marrieds he plays to these days. B+