such certainty of opinion, for ambivalence is the hallmark of his style. He has managed to make confusion an advantage, partly because he never hedges: he knows he doesn't know. The Pretender, the most complete development of his music, is bounded by contradiction. In "The Fuse," the record's first song, Browne professes: "There's a part of me .../Alive in eternity/That nothing can kill." In "The Pretender," the final number, he dismisses such spiritual hope: "I'm going to be a happy idiot/And struggle for the legal tender." Both of these statements are naive; for Browne they are equally true and false. So he admonishes his son, in "The Only Child": "Let your illusions last until they shatter."

If Browne has been heralded as a songwriter, this is due mostly to his lyric gift. The music itself has usually been ignored (at least by his admirers) and for good reason. His three earlier albums are sluggish and cluttered, a hodgepodge of California studio effects, without a solid center.

The Pretender uses identical rudiments, but focuses them. The results are often moving and compelling. The album's spareness is accentuated by passages of almost dreamy lushness (the strings on "Sleep's Dark and Silent Gate") and echoing vocals, which are a recurrent mannerism. Part of the improvement can be attributed to producer (and Rolling Stone contributing editor) Jon Landau, although it is also indicative of the artist's increased maturity. Browne's voice is notoriously weak, for instance, but the strength of the rhythm section forces the singing past its limits. On "Sleep's Dark," "The Pretender" and "The Only Child," the vocals have a new passion, equal to the themes.

Still, much of this album is the mellow California rock of which the Eagles are the alternate prototype. If Browne's music has more backbone than the rest, the genre itself is not very challenging. There is a tendency to blandness, even in a song as strong as "Your Bright Baby Blues." So "The Pretender," which uses the same musical conventions to achieve the dramatic force of Rod Stewart's "The Killing of Georgie" or Bob Seger's "Night Moves," is all the more remarkable.

If Browne were a different sort of performer, one might think he's outgrowing his environment. But all his music, perhaps even the singing, is functional. The focus is always lyrical. The arrangements and performances are successful precisely t