Administrative Error Dept. - Wrong Picture Uploaded By Mistake

So - who's looking at the horizon?

Rod The Mod is generally written off (Ed - you're fired) as a creative artist after [YOUR SHARK-JUMP ALBUM HERE - Ed.], and forever cast into perdition by simpering rock snobs, although he did okay by the record-buying and tour-attending public. I tried posting a Great American Songbook album a while back, and I'm still scraping off the rotten soup greens and furry white tomatoes that were hurled at me. Well, fuck you!

The blanket dismissal of everything the guy does is baffling. He's made a bunch of albums I don't listen to, but no more than say, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, or Van Morrison. When Time appeared in 2013 it got predictably short shrift [shrift is always short - Ed.] from those who didn't need to hear it to know they didn't like it. But it drew reasonable responses from critics who listened. They noted Rod's re-involvement with songwriting, and a return to the folk-rock organic sound of his classic iconic album classics.

But he made the mistake of singing about his happy home life - never a good look for a rock star. Rock bores and Millennials alike demand gritty seriousness and borderline depression - they don't want to hear somebody having a better time than they are. And Rod's having a party on this album. He wears his heart on his sleeve [where else? his collar? - Ed.] and unashamedly gets off on sentimentality - who else does that?

During the course of my in-depth research for this timely and provocative

She's back there!

think-piece, I listened to Every Picture Tells A Story and this, back to back. Picture has Maggie May and Mandolin Wind, but also a bunch of songs that are really no more than grooves, including the title track. Time is more consistent in quality, more varied in tone, and the high point Brighton Beach is as good as anything he ever co-wrote (with old mucker Jim Cregan). And - his singing is better. No - come back! It's no longer the cartoon rooster crow of the young rocker, but has the warmth and flexibility of a singer matured into his craft. You don't give a shit.

This edition has all the associated bonus tracks, and they're really worth having, including fantastic versions of Here Comes The Night, Corrina Corrina, and - especially - Shake Your Moneymaker.

(I don't know how this candid surfside snap of Kreemé got uploaded instead of the album cover, but I can assure you that it was entirely accidental and in no way intended to hook you into a piece about somebody you think turned to shit decades ago. Perish forbid!)