Sally Can't Dance

On the live album , showed he'd learned how to give his audience what they wanted, and do it well. , on the other hand, was the polar opposite, a remarkably cynical album that pandered to the lowest common denominator of the market that had bought and , and didn't even do it with much flair. 's performances here are limited to vocals, except for some sloppy acoustic guitar on one track (this from the man who helped reinvent electric guitar with ), and the sodden, overblown arrangements sink most of these tunes before they get past the first chorus; much of the time, sounds like an afterthought on his own album. And while 's best songwriting ranks with the best of his generation, is cluttered with throwaways that reach for the boho decadence of and come up empty (with special recognition going to the bizarre and truly puzzling ). Side two does offer two worthwhile songs: a powerful and deeply personal remembrance of 's bouts with shock treatment and brutal psychotherapy, which he would revisit in a much stronger performance on 1984's , and a witty and surprisingly poignant remembrance of an old friend and how their paths in life diverged. But otherwise, has the distinction of being the worst studio album of 's career; may have been a lot more annoying, but at least he was trying on that one. ~ Mark Deming