this dilemma seems particularly complex. After all, it wasn't too long ago that Stewart (who began his career idolizing Sam Cooke, David Ruffin and Ramblin' Jack Elliott) was digging graves for a living and feeling a little testy himself.

To his credit, Stewart decided not to take the easy way out this time. Instead of returning to Muscle Shoals and American sessionmen for a comfortable followup to Night on the Town, Rod opted to form a band and cut an album of mostly rock & roll. Foot Loose & Fancy Free is the result. But there's just one problem: the record falls flat.

Part of the trouble is the band, which sounds stiff and not particularly inspired. Guitarists Gary Grainger and Billy Peek dredge up familiar "Brown Sugar" chords on "Born Loose" and "Hot Legs" (a hedonistic revel that might have worked five years ago but now sounds only lecherous and silly), and "You're Insane" tries to combine funk and reggae but dies because drummer Carmine Appice (ex-Vanilla Fudge) just can't pull it off. The Faces rhythm section was creaky, too, but at least it made up for the lack of swing with an energetic, good-humored sloppiness.

Then there's the inclusion of a seven-and-a-half-minute version of "You Keep Me Hangin' On" (with, yes, the Vanilla Fudge arrangement), an odd lapse of taste for the normally scrupulous Stewart. A cover of Luther Ingram's "If Loving You Is Wrong (I Don't Want to Be Right)" comes off much better. Where Ingram sounded forlorn, resigned to the situation, Stewart is damned positive he's making the right decision. And when he sings the hook in the third chorus, the pull of his voice is still capable of creating Herculean emotional drama. Finally, there are the separation songs, which are drenched with a bitterness the arrangements don't always bring out. It's hard to be discreet when the disintegration of your romance is fodder for every two-bit, publication in the world. But Stewart doesn't even try. "You're in My Heart," the current single, is a cheeky, none-too-subtle put-down that deserves better than a country chorus awkwardly tacked to a singsong narrative. The subdued "You Got a Nerve" is more straightforward and features this chilling couplet: "Oh what pleasure it gives me now To know that you're bleeding inside." It's been a long year for Rod Stewart.

According to Greil Marcus, Graham Parker (who was pumping gas in England until tw