bludgeon guitar to the bittersweet, open-ended, pitter-patter melodies of Philadelphia sissy-soul, Money's songs reach effortlessly for the lowest common denominator of every idiom. They can't help but satisfy. Tests show, computers don't lie, a thousand popular songs can't be wrong—these are the riffs you love to listen to.

Tubular steel, modular pop. Form follows function like a hit man pulling down an hourly wage. Life for the Taking is as efficient as a three-minute lay. Rock & roll stripped of all individuality (not to mention romance), except for one calculated glimpse of the star's vulnerable soul. In this case, though, the album's climactic ballad is a fantasy more revealing than endearing. In "Call on Me," Money's a machine without an off switch, a superstud who swears he never sleeps. He's had "women, ladies, little girls," but you know he won't be satisfied until he's had us all.

There's a message here. If you'd never eat at a place called Ma's and you avoid playing poker with men called Doc, you won't go looking for art from a man named Money. Or true stories or good rockin' either. (RS 288)

ARIEL SWARTLEY