Consumer Guide Album

Loudon Wainwright III: I'm Alright [Rounder, 1985]
Last time he was complacent in defeat, his irony all sarcasm and his permanent postadolescence an annoying bore. This time he's facing up--not to anything existential or absurd, that stuff comes too easy, but to what it might mean to make an alright career (and life) out of "unhappy love." The result is discernibly superior to the perfectly enjoyable one-liner miscellanies of the late '70s and not quite there even so. Just rooting for the Rangers and having his doubts about bell-bottom pants once made him a (very minor) prophet; now they make him normal. My suggestion: a concept album about having kids. B+