Eddie Money is the state-of-the-art example of a new breed: the rock & roller as corporate thug. With songs that amount to nothing more than a set of swaggering poses, Money's professionally badass. He peddles crass venality as proof of toughness, bullying as a way of being cool.

To give Money his due, he's gotten a little subtler on Playing for Keeps. Here, the lyrics sometimes seem designed to show off what he probably thinks is his sensitive side, and the music occasionally stops to apologize between punches in the mouth. In fact, "Trinidad" is almost passable. But Money apparently believes that it's unnecessary to make up a riff when you can simply borrow: "The Wish," to give just one example, is a shotgun wedding between Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water" and Free's "All Right Now."

In Money's tunes, women are invariably treated as commodities, measured entirely by the size of their busts, the widths of their wallets and how much of either or both they're willing to part with. "Satin Angel," for instance, tries to evoke compassion for groupies, but the singer can't help gloating over their helplessness as they cower before him, with "lines around their mouth from pleading."

All in all, there's scarcely an original lick or moment of genuine feeling here. Indeed, Playing for Keeps' most inventive writing is on the inner sleeve, where Eddie Money thanks not only the "people on the streets [sic] for Columbia Records" but "everyone at Century City," too. Personally, I'd like to make him an offer he couldn't refuse. (RS 328)

TOM CARSON