MR. MUSIC HEAD

Adrian Belew 4th studio album is a nice mixture of commercial pop and experimental guitar phrases joined together by catchy melodies and quirky lyrics. The "Sound Guy" Belew pulls out all of his tricks and takes us on a journey that makes us ask, Oh Daddy When You Going to Be a Big Star? Belew shines on all intruments present on this album, save House of Cards and 1967, in which the bass is provided by one Mike Barnett, and for a second time, Belew's daughter makes a presence on one of Adrian's solo efforts (the first was the piano on The Final Rhino on his debut) with some nice back-up vocals for Oh Daddy.

The songs that really grab my attention are Oh Daddy, Peaceable Kingdom, Bird in a Box, and 1967, the latter of which will go down as one of his most creative and inventive pieces. Oh Daddy is a nice simple pop song with some nice back ups from Audie. The melody and rhythm are concise and keep the song at a nice uptempo pace. Peaceable Kingdom was another one of the singles on the album, and it has more concise and creative playing from Belew as well as some nice lyrics. Bird in a Box is behind 1967 as the quirkiest track on the album. Some manic guitar and soothing vocal come to mind when I think of this song. The finale to the album is 1967, which will go down in my mind as one of Adrian's most creative pieces. It goes through many different styles and moods, but it always keeps that feeling of the 60's throughout.

Overall, this isn't a great album. It's good, but if you're looking for progressive rock, you should steer clear of this one. If you like really strong pop and some very inventive guitar work, you may find something enjoyable in this album. 3/5.

Mr. Music Head has Adrian Belew playing all of the instruments, except bass on a couple of tunes. The songs are mostly pop, and therefore, not terribly exciting to me. However, Belew manages to blend in some of those weird guitar tones that he has become known for here and there.

Of note, House Of Cards is grace by an eerie sustained guitar background throughout the song. Hot Zoo with animal noises, could have been a track on Lone Rhino. Motoer Bungalow has a cool rhythm track, and a nice Belew elephant solo. But all of the songs, while slightly inventive, are juat too mundane to capture my interest for any sustained period of time. Unfortunately, that hold true for too much of Belew's solo material.

Adrian Belew mostly does away with his compositional and productional quirks in order to make a more accessible pop album, but he sadly also mostly does away with the songwriting talent which he demonstrated on previous recordings and which would certainly be required to make such an undertaking a success. For my money, the only good song on here is "1967", a very well-crafted multi-part pop suite that sounds like a mutated Beatles pastiche (that's a compliment). "Oh Daddy" has some charm to it and there are a few tracks with a quasi-industrial feel to it and at least somewhat stand out for that reason (even if they don't really rouse me either) but everything else just puts me to sleep.