World Party

World Party isn't just fronted by Welsh '60s rock fanatic Karl Wallinger; he's the entire band (with a then-unknown Sinead O'Connor adding backing vocals). The record's not perfect, but overall this is a fine debut, with Wallinger channeling his Beatles/Stones/Kinks/Dylan fixation into original songs like "Ship of Fools" (a still-timely hit single), "All Come True" and "World Party." He'd get even better than this.

As a sourpuss who counsels self-improvement and jots down the occasional specific, Karl Wallinger is several steps up the evolutionary ladder from Howard Jones. But it's no less fatalistic to say humanity is defined by original sin than to say the world is good because God made it. Jones believes that war is over if you think it is, Wallinger that war is over if each and every one of you think it is; both prefer attitude to action, especially collective action. And if that's rock and roll, as I sometimes fear, it doesn't happen to be good rock and roll. (Grade - C)