NRBQ

Dirty Linen (4-5/01, p.70) - "...A transitional record...it rolls along, it gets a good glow going. Relax and enjoy."
CMJ (11/13/00, p.21) - "...A gem of an album from the young Q...epitomizing why its music has always been so fresh, vital and timeless..."

NRBQ have been around for a while now–off and on since 1967 in Miami, certainly an
inauspicious place from which to launch a career in rock & roll. In the beginning, NRBQ
meant New Rhythm & Blues Quintet–kinda pretentious right? So they dropped all those other
letters and sported the initials like a license plate which is the way it looked on the cover
of their first album. NRBQ (Columbia CS 9858) remains one of the great underrate... More >

I've never quite gotten with the abbreviation. New doesn't mean cute, or fancy, or at least it shouldn't, and rhythm-and-blues doesn't mean this. I don't understand why they turned the Q into Quintet by adding singer Frank Gadler, either--all he's ever added is more cuteness, even doing a John Sebastian on one cut. They're tuneful as hell, but so arch--"Who Put the Garlic in the Glue?" indeed--that the only tune I can bear to contemplate is "Magnet." Which attracts me like one. See, they've got me doing it. Yuk. (Grade - B)