If Falco had disappeared after his 1981 hit "Der Kommissar," future archivists could have memorialized the Austrian singer on some Eurotrash Volume II compilation, and twenty years from now he'd be regarded as fondly as mid-Sixties comets like the Standells, the Music Machine and the Count Five are today. But one-hit wonders, like boxers and dictators, rarely retire gracefully. Falco's third album is convincing only as an argument for toughening this country's import-export laws.

Even if you could correct half of what's bad about the record – add some vigor to the anonymous rhythms, edit the dance mixes down to an endurable length, require Falco to sing rather than grunt – Falco3 would still be wretched. Unfortunately, he has no shortage of material (the LP clocks in at more than fifty minutes), because he regards all American idioms as subjects for his Viennese vivisections. The lead track, "Rock Me Amadeus," is an obnoxious pastiche of hip-hop, heavy metal and the classics that steals from Malcolm McLaren and Run-D.M.C.'s latest records. It's getting a good amount of dance-club play, which suggests that either dance clubbers have broadened their definition of good trash, or they're really bored this season. (Where's Madonna when you need her?) He's got the brass to rerecord the Cars' "Looking for Love" as "Munich Girls," and he's heard enough Springsteen to put a glockenspiel in a song and call it "America."

Although Falco is obviously eager to whip up some creative new blend of continental and New World traditions, his album-closing version of Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" can only do harm to Austro-American diplomacy. (RS 471)

ROB TANNENBAUM