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Formats and Editions
1. Will We Ever?
2. Where Home Used to Be
3. Take Me With U
4. From Now Until Then
5. Despite the Sun
6. Spell Is Broken, The
7. Few Thousand Days Ago, A
8. Long and Complicated
9. I'd Rather Be With You
10. Alone in a Room
11. AKA "A Big Heavy Hot Dog"
Reviews:
When Marshall Crenshaw jumped out of the New York new wave scene to sign with Warner Brothers in 1981, great things were predicted for him. The local press in New York had already dubbed him the "new wave Buddy Holly," probably because of his choice of thick black eyeglasses. His eponymous first album, and so far his commercial and artistic high point, included "Someday, Someway," an inescapable staple of burgeoning modern rock radio as well as "She Can't Dance" and "Not for Me," solid songs, but lacking the originality and drive of "Someday."Since that opening salvo, Crenshaw has released 13 more efforts of workmanlike pop; all bright and shiny surfaces and perfect vehicles for his pleasingly vulnerable tenor. It's the songwriting that fails and makes Crenshaw increasingly sound like a one hit wonder. That's not to say that What's in the Bag? is a total loss. The Prince hit "Take Me With U" is an infectiously catchy pop tune-although it might sound better with a more muscular arrangement-and "A Few Thousand Days Ago" is a country/pop tune that might do well for an established Nashville star, but most of this is the same kind of good, but not great stuff Crenshaw's been turning out for decades. So, the short, honest answer to the rhetorical query that titles this album, is "Nothing much." The guitars chime like bells, and the voice is achingly sincere, but that doesn't supply the power to lift up a disc full of musical and lyrical clichr>
