Controversy Review

The template from the year before is repeated with more confidence and less material. The title track is excellent, seven minutes of a locked groove and a lyric that asks the questions people were asking about him and refuses to answer any of them, with a prayer dropped into the middle simply because it was provocative. Let's Work is a great piece of rhythm programming. After that the album thins out badly.

Ronnie Talk to Russia is a ninety second political outburst that is genuinely embarrassing. Annie Christian is an experiment in spoken word over a stark backing that does not survive a second play. Do Me, Baby is a seven minute bedroom ballad, beautifully sung and about three minutes too long. The sound is tighter than Dirty Mind and colder, and the ideas about faith and sex and race that would power the next five years are all present in rough form. As a listening experience it is the weakest of the classic run.