Consumer Guide Album

David Lee Roth: Crazy From the Heat [Warner Bros. EP, 1985]
Since I'm a person of broader culture than the average Van Halen fan, it didn't smash my preconceptions to hear him cover the Beach Boys and the Spoonful and Dan Hartman and "Just a Gigolo"--just irritated me, reconfirming my instinctive belief that he chose metal over Vegas because Vegas wouldn't have him. Way back when, that is--it's clearly where he'll end up if his movie career should fall through. And as it turns out, his movie career has softened me up--the panoply of grotesquely stereotyped caricatures who populate his videos grosses me out a little, but its capacity to shock is tonic in this bland musical moment. This is an adequate soundtrack. B