a Gift & a Curse Review

Everything that had been missing arrives at once because he finally had something to say. Freed on a plea that most of his audience considered a betrayal, he made forty minutes of music about isolation, loyalty and being hated, and the whispered delivery that used to signal luxury now reads as someone talking quietly because the room has turned on him.

Fukumean is the hit and it is a genuinely great pop record, light and mean at the same time. Bread & Butter is the direct answer to the accusations and he does not flinch from it. Rodeo Dr and Back at It carry the mood. The production is tighter and colder than the earlier albums, less cushioning, more space. It is the shortest record he has made and the only one with a point of view. Whatever anyone thinks of the circumstances, the music got better under pressure.