Encore Review

The collapse is audible in real time. He was deep into pills and the record answers that by getting louder and dumber, leaning on a nasal cartoon voice for whole songs and mistaking irritation for provocation. Ass Like That and Rain Man are not jokes that misfire, they are jokes that were never loaded. The beats are the flattest of his run, sparse keyboard figures that sound like sketches he did not have the energy to finish.

Then there is Mockingbird, which is plain and devastating and would sit comfortably on any of the good albums, and Like Toy Soldiers, which is the only place he sounds fully awake. Yellow Brick Road is worth hearing once for how directly it confronts his own old tape. Two thirds of this is a man doing an impression of himself for people who will buy anything with his face on it, and the sales proved him right, which is the sad part.