Warren Zevon
Reconsider Me: The Love Songs
(Artemis)
The thing that made Warren Zevon a cult icon was not the fact that he was a great songwriter — although he was — it was the bitter, caustic wit that bled through his best work. A collection of Zevon’s love songs, then, lacks the wry critiques on modern life that made him so appealing. It seems strange that a label would want to release such a compilation since the best work in Zevon’s catalogue never focused on love at all. Though there are some classic moments such as “Accidentally, Like Martyr” and “Reconsider Me,” for the most part the album is uneven. Rhino has released in the past both a great two-disc and a single disc anthology, making this collection a waste of time and money.
—Trevor MacLaren