With one eye on production values and the other on the bottom line, Bryan Adams has crafted a flashy third album that's more a carefully constructed shot at the big time than essential rock & roll. Impeccably produced by Adams and Bob Clearmountain, Cuts like a Knife offers ten songs on the subject of love. Rarely has the notion of being in that enchanted state, or being wracked by its debilitating uncertainties, seemed so pedestrian. For despite Adams' appealingly throaty voice, there's simply nothing happening underneath the good looks and the smooth moves. Guided by a market researcher's cognizance of the requisites for airplay, such songs as "I'm Ready" and "Take Me Back" lack any rough edges that might reveal a hint of personality.

The problem may be one of roots: time and again, Adams pays tribute to the influential arena acts of the past several years – e.g., Foreigner, Billy Squier–and little else. Refusing to look either forward or backward and drawing from limited sources, Cuts like a Knife simmers in its own sameness. Which doesn't mean that stardom isn't imminent for this golden boy; in fact, this record is bland precisely because it grooms Adams for mass-market acceptance so shamelessly. To top off the gambit, Bryan Adams' name is barely discernible in large, faintly printed letters on the cover–a subliminal command, I suppose, for us to suddenly go out and request his songs. No thank you. (RS 395)

ERROL SOMAY