On 'Life's Too Short,' Marshall Crenshaw's sixth album, the bespectacled singer-songwriter stays true to the increasingly arcane notion that all you need to rock is a guitar, a handful of chords and a rhythm section ready to make some noise. Crenshaw is hardly alone in his devotion to the concise style of pop rock epitomized by Buddy Holly and the Beatles. The irony is that latterday music inspired by these enduring figures has frequently fallen on deaf ears.

Crenshaw hasn't really changed much since his beguiling 1982 debut – he's still a snappy songwriter, an aw-shucks singer and a relentlessly rhythmic guitarist. Each album has seen a new producer trying to put just the right sonic spin on Crenshaw's seemingly marketable rock. On Life's Too Short, Ed Stasium puts Crenshaw in front of a crack rhythm section (Kenny Aronoff on drums and Fernando Saunders on bass) and cranks the guitars.

Crenshaw probably didn't have to portray John Lennon onstage and Holly in the movies to write infectious boppers like "Delilah" and "Walkin' Around," but it must have helped. Regrettably, Crenshaw doesn't seem to fret over his lyrics as much as his chord changes. What else could explain quoting the Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want" in the first two lines of the album's opening tune, "Better Back Off" (written with Tom Teeley)? Even Crenshaw's collaboration with Jules Shear, "Everything's the Truth," is only ordinary.

Yet when the guitars chime like church bells on the decidedly silly "Fantastic Planet of Love," you can't help but smile and swear that you've been there. Crenshaw, whose most radical notion is that dance music can be the same as rock, has always celebrated simple pleasures. The album's darkest moment comes on the finest tune, "Walkin' Around," which evokes the same pedestrian pleasures as "Rockin' Around in N.Y.C.," a song from Crenshaw's first album. The only difference is that this time, the guy and girl are about to break up. Characteristically, Crenshaw rocks them right into the sunset. (RS 606)

JOHN MILWARD