Walsh's second album of the 80's improves upon the apathy of the previous record but also has its' flaws, and overall, has to be taken with a few grains of salt. Once again, "Chocolate" Perry is in the producer's chair, along with long time James Gang and Eagles associate Bill Szymczyk, and in the very least the vibe is more adventurous for the listener. Furthermore, Walsh really turns up the volume as far as his "Clown Prince of Rock" role goes, with some risqué material. Curiously, the album doesn't start that way, with "I Can Play That Rock and Roll" and "Told You So" being the first two tracks and playing it rather safe, but even here, Walsh's guitar is more prominent and his vocals have more of a loony edge to them. However, the album doesn't get rolling until the third track, "Here We Are Now", which is a very pleasant and harmonious reggae-style exercise which might have fit in with quirky vibe that There Goes the Neighborhood was going for, if Walsh had bothered to branch out into this realm.
From here, it's a bit more anything goes: "The Worry Song" is a Perry/Walsh collaboration that updates Joe to the realities of the 80's - both technically and socially - and does a fairly adept job, because at the end of the day, Joe's mantra is usually pretty much, "why worry?" And this is followed up by the first of three collaborations between Walsh and his old buddy Joe Vitale, the raunchy tack piano-driven goof "I.L.B.T.s" - which, if you bother to unravel the acronym, doesn't have anything to do with BLT's. Vitale/Walsh next comment on the then-video game craze on "Space Age Whiz Kids", which for me is notable more for how well they arrange their instruments to make them sound like an 80's video game, than any wise-crackin' lyrical commentary within the track. The rest of the album harkens back to late 70's Walsh - "Class of '65", "Shadows", and "Theme from Island Weirdos" (the last Vitale/Walsh contribution) function together as one mysterious suite intended to look back on the past with fondness and longing, rather than the static bitterness of the last record.
If I was to go strictly by the letter of the law here, I would actually apply the previous album's title to this one, because it seems more appropriate, in this case. Then again, it does not mean we are talking about a serious improvement from one album to the next, either. It just means there was more of the classic Walsh attitude infused into this record, that's all.
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