Briefs

Rip It Up, Issue 64, 1 November 1982, Page 34

Briefs

Billy Joel The Nylon Curtain (CBS) Billy Joel is still trying very hard to convey himself as 'a regular guy', despite all those platinum albums and millions of dollars. It's tough at the top. The Nylon Curtain is another attempt to exorcise his guilt about being a success. It’s filled with angst, from industrial wastelands to suburbia and even Vietnam (he evidently read 'Dispatches' or saw Apocalypse Now). It's all wrapped in his MOR piano-based arrangements, and doesn't even have the benefit of a pretty single. If I sound cynical it is because this man sounds insincere. DC Rick Springfield Success Hasn't Spoiled Me Yet (Wizard) It's probably got the year's worst sleeve but if, like me, you were seduced by 'Jesse's Girl' then Success seems a pretty neat album. Lots of pimply pop-rock riffs as Rick keeps pumping that guitar (just like we've seen him on Solid Gold ) and getting all adolescent anguished over girls. 'Don't Talk To Strangers' is another boffo single and the whole album goes great with my morning muesli. PT The Who, It's Hard (Polydor) With Pete Townshend you can bet the title song will be more about coping with life than that usual male preoccupation. Trouble is, Roger Daltrey remains the archetype macho rocksinger. The whole band in fact, brilliant musicians though they remain, seem trapped in an increasingly arthritic approach. Hardly surprising that the best tracks first and last on Side One are those where the sound is least traditional Who. Maybe for some long-time

fans it's hard to accept that the Who has outlived its use. They should check out . Townshend's very fine, recent, solo set and meet the new boss. PT Kim Carnes Voyeur (EMI America) When you score America's biggest selling single of 1981 then the record company is more than willing to spend big bucks on your follow-up album. And considering the bleating wimps that so often dominate the US Top 10, it's to Carnes' credit that she's made an album that leans to big beefy rock. Oh, it's conservative stuff for sure but it also has compensations such as tolerable lyrics, discernable tunes and a general lack of pretension. Trouble is, all the swathes of synth and punchy production can't stave off the awareness that it's all just very expensive competence. Perhaps that's ..what makes the ballad 'Does It Make You Remember' stand out from the pack. PT The Blues Band Brand Loyalty (Arista) . . Seven original numbers, five covers: drummer Hughie. Flint's gone; Dave Kelly now gets as many vocal spots as Paul Jones; there's some sure supplementing from brass and keyboards but basically it's business as usual. More . blues and boogie from Britain's supremo's of the Midge Marsden/Willie Dayson circuit. The Shakin' Pyramids FT Celts and Cobras (Virgin) A second album of rockabilly and assorted nostalgia from Glasgow's Shakin' Pyramids. With an eye to wider appeal they've gone electric, employed Roger Bechirian and Bob Andrews on production chores and included a pretty passable Costello ditty, 'Just A Memory', on the first side. Self-penned 'Like Me With No-one' and 'Plainsailin' suggest that the Pyramids have a future if they can throw off the rockabilly idiom that unfortunately dominates the rest of the album. 'GK