If blondes have as much fun as Rod Stewart's new record insists they do, no wonder they're exhausted when they stagger into the studio. Even so, Stewart's current anemia is a hard thing to understand. Never before has he attacked such uncertain material with so little gusto or levity—for once, his trademarked "Whooo!" carries no conviction. And never has he offered an album that's actively disagreeable to listen to. If only this were a simple case of the blahs.
There are really only two kinds of songs here, the trendy and the tragic. "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" is a serviceable enough disco hit—thanks more to a clever string line than to the singer's noncommittal vocal—but
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its undisguised eagerness to please is alarming. Instead of shaping this material, Stewart embraces it unquestioningly, proffering yet another bloodless affirmation of disco as this week's going concern. In a way, "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" is Rod Stewart's answer to the Rolling Stones' "Miss You"—his assertion that he's not only durable but also eternally in style.
But Mick Jagger's vocal on "Miss You" was at once celebratory and subversive, suggesting a descent through the music's gloss into a middle-of-the-night seediness beneath. Jagger sang both with the song and against it; Stewart, by comparison, is drably cooperative. Aside from providing evidence that even pop's most individualistic performers can be made to sound anonymous when engulfed by a sufficiently sweeping trend, "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" doesn't make much of an impression.
Nor does "Dirty Weekend," next on Blondes Have More Fun and the number perhaps meant to be most scandalous. As the title promises, the lyrics are lewd, full of drugs and sex and the thrill of checking into a hotel under an assumed name with one's best friend's girl. Maybe this is filthy as all get-out, or maybe it's only as dirty as ring-around-the-collar: Stewart doesn't seem to have made up his mind. He sounds so enthralled by the smuttiness that he's almost embarrassed by it. Against a wall of fake-boisterous, undifferentiated noise, his vocal is muffled, and there's no particular animation to the part that's audible. The song stops short on a dime, as if everyone involved were glad to get it over with.
Can things get worse? You bet they can. The third cut, "Ain't Love a Bitch," is unexpectedly sensitive, with a soft, strum-along melody and a bunch of namby-pamby characters doo-doo-doing a background chorus while Stewart croons about old girlfriends. He's pensive but he also sings with a cheery lilt, which turns particularly murderous when he gets around to quoting from "Maggie May." Who would ever have dreamed, during Rod Stewart's days of genuine raucousness, that a track this tough could be made to sound like the 1400th cover version of "I Left My Heart in San Francisco"? Though he's kicked off the LP with a hyped-up boyishness, he now creaks along like an old man.
"The Best Days
