America

America

Highway: 30 Years of America (Warner Bros./Rhino)

Ugh. You may not know this -- nor care -- but America is still together. They released an album of new material just two years ago. Honest. And if the name conjures happy memories of an empty-headed and carefree youth set to a soundtrack of slightly meaningful classic rock, best keep America in your memory where it's safe. Listening to anything deeper than their ubiquitous History: America's Greatest Hits can only scar you and unmask those recollections for the rose-colored revisionism that they are. This is nasty stuff. America first became aware of America when the upstart acoustic trio bumped Neil Young's "Heart of Gold" off the top of the charts with their own tepid imitation of Mr. Young called "A Horse With No Name" back in 1971. That began a string of Top 40 hits that kept them in the forefront of popular consciousness for years to come. Which is unfortunate. They may have ridden Young's sound into the limelight, but their watered-down take on his music was about as close to the source as the Black Crowes are to the Stones. Neil Young had balls. Still does. Even without Young, sometimes, CS&N, whom America also emulated, had balls. America has no balls. Their songs are flimsy and sentimental, thin as onion skin and weak as coffee at the office. The first disc of this 3-CD set is tolerable enough, starting out with the instrumental "Riverside" and continuing through "A Horse With No Name" and "I Need You," apparently using familiar sequencing to try to lull the listener into a false sense of Greatest Hits security. A couple of only slightly crappy songs from their debut, then "Sandman" and soon, "Ventura Highway." Good enough, right? Nope. Drippy folk song after drippy light folk song turns this stroll down the lighter side of memory lane into a nightmare of trapped-in-an-elevator-with-the-music-still-on proportions. And there are 64 songs on these three discs. The second CD is lost from the get-go, beginning with the poster song of sappy Adult Contemporary garbage, "Muskrat Love," and it's a freefall from there. "Green Monkey" is dorky in its earnestness, while "Rainbow Song" is just awful, awful stuff. Pat, gutless, lighter-than-air pseudo-folk. And it just goes on and on. The third CD, not surprisingly, is totally unnecessary. Their "California Dreamin'" is offensive, "You Can Do Magic" is so much worse than you remember, and the demos at the end are embarrassing. Yes, they've got the hits, but the overwhelming majority of the songs on this box set are so bad that when the hits do come, they're cheapened, their status as classic-rock staples knocked down to that dead, airless place where Styx and Huey Lewis reside. Stick to the radio, that's my advice. At most, do yourself a favor and keep to the Greatest Hits. Keep the memories alive.