Kim Fowley - Sunset Boulevard (2022)

Kim Fowley's Sunset Boulevard is a bizarre new wave curio, a concept album about all the young punks on the Sunset Strip by a man old enough to be their father? (And in some cases, he probably was.) Like all dads, though, Fowley is basically clueless when it comes to the younger generation, and his attempts to be "hip" and "with it" throughout this album are at best laughable and at worst, kinda pathetic. For example, "The Top" would be a much more effective scenario of decadent Hollywood street kicks if it weren't set to what even in 1978 must have sounded like a particularly lame plastic-disco backing that had as much to do with punk music as those infamous episodes of ChiPs and CPO Sharkey about the dangers of punk rock. Titles like "Teenage Death Girl" and "North American Man" are similarly eye-rolling, and that's even without hearing the pretentious lyrics delivered in Fowley's inimitable voice, a campy sing-speak trill that sounds kind of like Paul Lynde gone punk. There is admittedly something perversely fascinating about Sunset Boulevard, but it's in no way an album that can be called "good" with a straight face. In its way, Sunset Boulevard is Mrs. Miller's Greatest Hits for the kids who grew up at the Masque and the Starwood. ~ Stewart Mason