Don Johnson

Is the news that a competent singer has emulated his best buddies' music enough to get him on the cover of Rolling Stone? Formally, after all, it's the 1986 equivalent of a fifteen-minute extravaganza about Atlantis--bizzers at their most empty and self-congratulatory. What redeems it up to a point is Miami Vice's garish vision of El Lay rock as the epitome of high-rolling sleaze, hyping jaded emotions into some semblance of recognizability. And what does it in is Johnson's competence. Tina Turner can make such stuff signify, but Johnson, who rasps through his TV lines, goes clear when he sings. Isn't knowing Don Henley good for anything? (Grade - C+)