Turn Up That Noise An eclectic survey of recent recordings. Stephen Grimstead, Editor Randy Newman Bad Love (Dreamworks) His best album since 1974's Good Old Boys, Bad Love is the Randy Newman album we've all been waiting for. A tour de force of humor, loathing, and liberalism-in-crisis, it's a multifaceted musical ethnography of that increasingly common Newman type -- a rich old white guy submerged in a peculiarly American brand of know-nothingism. This is an album in which nine of 12 songs are about failed patriarchy and the other three sound like throwaways. And if the composite bastard at the album's center isn't exactly Newman, he may be unsettlingly close to him. Witness the far-from-coincidental similarities between the deadbeat dad of the admittedly autobiographical "I Miss You" and the prevaricating pops of the fictional "Big Hat, No Cattle." The first, a love song to his ex-wife and their children, offers an apology of heart-breaking simplicity from a man who would "sell my soul and your souls for a song." By comparison, the good-for-nothing father and husband on the faux-country "Big Hat, No Cattle" steps up to deliver a quintessential Newman punchline. "Oft times I have wondered what might I have become/Had I but buckled down and really tried," he sings. "But when it came down to the wire/I called my family to my side/Stood up straight, threw my head back, and I lied, lied, lied." Bad Love trails Newman's shape-shifting antihero from the album's cheapest joke, the sweepingly global "The Great Nations of Europe" to the intensely personal "I Miss You." From the repulsively knowing -- the despicable old lecher of "Shame" -- to the comically clueless -- the aging rocker of "I'm Dead (But I Don't Know It)," a deliciously mean song that would have been even funnier if Newman had cut to the chase and called it "Rod Stewart." Twice he plays an ugly old bastard preying on women half his age and twice he plays the same old bastard giving jaded advice to a younger counterpart; the same guy from "Shame" who implores the "little baby girl" to come over and see his new Lexus turns around on "Better Off Dead" to complain about women who "just treat you like dirt/They make you feel all fat and fumbly/Make you feel kind of dirty " Nowhere is Newman more in his own skin than on the Broadway lilt of "The World Isn't Fair." Here he exhumes Karl Marx, brings him to his big house on the hill, and explains that, while the old revolutionary's aims were noble, they just didn't work out in an unfair world. He introduces Marx to his wealthy, aging friends ("men much like me/Froggish men, unpleasant to see") who are paired with beautiful second wives half their age. "I'm glad I'm living in the land of the free," Newman adds, singing from the sunny side of the economic and sexual divide, with far more reluctant sympathy than sarcasm or bitterness, "where the rich just get richer and the poor you don't ever have to see." The liberal cynic in Newman may shrink from his characters' crassness, but he doesn't shrink too much. He acknowledges complicity. -- Chris Herrington Kevin Coyne Sugar Candy Taxi (RUF Records/Polygram) Chances are you've heard of Kevin Coyne, but never had the opportunity to listen to his music. Even though he's released more than 30 records, he remains relatively unknown in the United States, and totally anonymous in the South. Which is something of a damn shame, since Coyne is much more interesting than the bulk of vanity codswallop that passes for "cutting edge" entertainment these days. Coyne regards his latest CD, Sugar Candy Taxi, to be "a return to roots, as a heartfelt blast from the soul." That's a pretty fair summation of the album, which defies categorization and attempts to compare it to known quantities. To the uninitiated, Coyne sounds somewhat like a tenor version of Randy Newman, with all of the sly humor and none of the bitterness. Sugar Candy Taxi gains much strength from the musicianship of Coyne's sons, Robert and Eugene, making it a true family affair. Some of the more memorable songs were co-written by Robert (the title cut, "Happy Little Fat Man,") and Eugene ("Fly" and "It Hurts"). However, Daddy Coyne manages to suffuse the proceedings with enough of his own idiosyncratic sensibilities that there's no doubt who's running the show, right down to the charming cover artwork. Kevin Coyne can spontaneously write and record a solid song in less time than it takes most folks to eat a bowl of cereal. But his music is no less valuable for its expediency, and actually gains strength through its total unpretentiousness. Sugar Candy Taxi manages to be both simple and intricate at the same time, and Coyne's refusal to cater to obvious popular tastes gives his unique brand of music a freshness and purity of spirit unfettered by commercial concerns. Not for all tastes, but a complex flavor worth sampling. -- David D. Duncan