Kevin Rowland, My Beauty

It's sad to watch a once-great artist decay, especially when they've always displayed such a fire for their art. Given the choice, I'm all for burning out rather than fading away--the fade-out can get so ugly that it's painful to watch.

Case in point: one Kevin Rowland. There's no reason why the name should ring any bells, but if you don't recognize his crowning achievement in the annals of pop music, then you've spent too much time inside that cave where you live. He's the songwriter and lead singer on "Come On Eileen," the early eighties' dance hit for Rowland's band, Dexy's Midnight Runners. Rowland recorded a couple of classic "celtic soul" records with Dexy's in the early eighties, but only "Come On Eileen" has really outlived the era. It's become one of the most enduring singles from the decade.

It endures for good reason. It's bloody brilliant. You've probably danced your pretty little brains out to it countless times without ever realizing just how amazing it is. It's an anthem for youth, a defiant blast of pure pop genius against the stagnation of daily life, and one of the great statutory love songs of all time.

If only any of the above could be said of Rowland's latest effort, My Beauty. He's traded in Dexy's shrill horn section for saccharine violins, his gutteral growl of rebellion for the flaccid wail of middle-age. His fire has burned out, and the resulting pile of ashes makes for one abysmal album.

There is exactly one song where Rowland manages to rekindle any sense of his past glories, his remake of "Concrete and Clay." Driven by acoustic guitar, it's a light and airy reading of the tune that floats easily into your brain. Otherwise, My Beauty is a steaming mound of crap.

Try--just TRY--making your way through the album's opening song, a cover of (you will NOT believe this) "The Greatest Love of All" by Whitney Houston. Now, for what it is, "The Greatest Love of All" is not a bad song. As eighties power ballads go, I'd put it right up there with "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and "All By Myself." But you take away Whitney, and you're in trouble. Drop in Kevin Rowland instead of Whitney, and you've got the aural equivalent of a train wreck. The track nearly drowns in a sea of overwrought string arrangements, with Rowland lazily crooning above it all. He sounds kinda like Frank Sinatra, if Sinatra had sucked ass.

But wait--there's more. Some of the other tunes Rowland defiles on My Beauty: "Rag Doll" by the Four Seasons, "The Long and Winding Road" by the Beatles and "You'll Never Walk Alone" from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel. Each one awash in strings, each one stripped of any redeeming value, each one seemingly more dreadful than the last. I would love some insight on what inspired Rowland to choose these tunes--my bet is that it probably has less to do with artistic intent and more to do with who was willing to let him beat their song to a bloody pulp on compact disc. Heck, when I first heard that Bruce Springsteen wouldn't let Rowland cover "Thunder Road," I was sorta peeved at the Boss' presumptions. Now I thank God that Rowland never got near it.

As if the mere idea of a formerly talented musician killing his stagnant career right before your very ears weren't bad enough, Rowland pushes the songs into absurdity with his constant need to "personalize" each one. Of course, they're not his to rewrite, but why should that stop him? On the Monkees' "Daydream Believer," the opening hook of the chorus transforms from "Cheer up, Sleepy Jean" to "Cheer up, Little G." Who the fuck is little G? Who the fuck cares? And all those untranslatable mumbles and howls that used to sound so empassioned and revealing on Dexy's tunes? Now they're self-indulgent whines.

This is one awful album. It's uninspired, it's lifeless and it's sentimental enough to make even Kathie Lee Gifford wanna puke. I'm all for taking Kevin Rowland out behind the shed and putting him out of his misery. I'm not asking for him to go back in time and keep cranking out the same Dexy's record for the rest of his life...actually, yeah, I am. Anything's better than this dreck he tries to pass off as "music." To paraphrase Betty Davis, whatta disaster.