MOTT THE HOOPLE

The Hoople

(Columbia)

Right away I like this album. I like it because it’s Mott the Hoople, a band that could probably please me just by farting with the slightest degree of sincerity. After years of performing for an audience that almost seemed limited to those who already got their albums free, the situation is at last in the hands of the cash & carry crowd. Which is exactly where it should be. For the first time I don’t have to try and sell you on Mott the Hoople, and parties aren’t very much fun until somebody else shows up.

But this is also the first Mott album that they couldn’t make basically on their own time. It’s the first time that they’ve had to wrestle with the pressure of a demand for their product; recording deadlines, release dates that mechanically mesh with tour dates, having everybody from the janitor to the label president wondering where that next album is. Thinking three steps ahead of yourself is hard, a task made no easier when you’re also trying to work somebody new (guitarist Ariel Bender) into the present.