Warren Zevon "Excitable Boy" [1978]

Welcome back to 1978, ladies and gents. We've been waiting for somebody -- anybody! -- to revisit a pop landscape so flat and overrun with LA session musicians it actually allowed people like Carly Simon and Steve Martin to have hit singles. Basically, the place was a barren wasteland following the twin nukes of "Hotel California" and "Rumours," yet somehow Warren Zevon's deadpan baritone elbowed its way into the mix with a lyric sheet that should have never left whatever high school misfit's bedroom it came out of. Werewolves as rock stars, absurd revenge fantasies and depressing fiction that illustrates he must have been stoned while reading Graham Greene and Jerzy Kosinski, Zevon was maybe somewhat original here but he's still terrible enough to gross out even Randy Newman. But far worst of all, however, on "Excitable Boy" he shows an utter willingness to give himself up to the sell-out trainwreck of lush, sappy ballads and embarrassingly insipid white disco that was Boz Skaggs' "Silk Degrees." If LA wasn't a disgusting town for the music biz before this time period, it most certainly was afterward. And for all Zevon's unlikely lyrical subject matter, he must shoulder a substantial amount of the burden for helping that town become a most unlivable place.