People often mock John Denver for his supermellow, sticky-sweet wholesomeness, yet hardly anyone ever picks on Dan Fogelberg, who traffics in the same trite, treacly sentiments that made Denver a pet peeve (and, of course, several million dollars).

Fogelberg's work not only utilizes numberless storybook-romantic platitudes but also every laid-back, folk-rock cliché that's flitted down the Rocky Mountains to Southern California. Those cushioned cascades of breathy backup harmonies, that mournful pedal steel, those pristine EZ-2-Play acoustic-guitar chords, that swishy halo of synthesized orchestration hovering over a quavery lead singer–all sound so pleasantly familiar because they've been heard before on countless records by the Eagles, Poco, America, Bread and Crosby, Stills and Nash. Fogelberg smooshes these various elements together for maximum recognizability. But even at its prettiest – and sometimes it's awfully pretty–his music lacks the core of authentic feeling that makes good icky pop. It's like a copy of a copy of a copy whose original image has become a blur.

Dan Fogelberg's lyrics are a sociological phenomena in themselves. They're derived from and aimed at a generation raised on Kahlil Gibran and fantasy fiction. Meaningless strings of words arranged to resemble profundities, they rely for substance on the mystical connotations of clichés drawn from damsel-and-dragon tales – words like primeval, spell and quest. Even the album's title, Phoenix, is misappropriated as a fantasy-fiction synonym for survivor.

Take, for example, the chorus of Fogelberg's new single, "Heart Hotels," which goes (in part): "And the voices you hear at the top of the stairs/Are only echoes of unanswered prayers." Why do you suppose those voices are at the top of the stairs? Couldn't unanswered prayers just as easily – even meaningfully – be located in the closet, the bedroom, the mailbox? To Fogelberg, such questions are irrelevant. "Stairs" and "prayers" are there because they rhyme with "daily affairs" (in which one is urged to "seek inspiration") and "repairs" (which one's troubled soul requires).

That Dan Fogelberg croons tunes about upstairs prayers with the same unwavering sensitivity and smiley voice as he sings songs about divorce, true love and nuclear disaster further proves that he doesn't care what he's saying. So why should we? (RS 317)

DON SHEWEY