(FORTUNE Magazine) – Randy Newman Bad Love DreamWorks Records

One of the cardinal rules of show biz is that you need a nice hero--someone the audience can root for. Luckily, Randy Newman doesn't bother with that rule. Even though he's composed music for movies like A Bug's Life, Newman's solo work is populated by bigots, arsonists, and enough neurotic lovers to fill a Woody Allen film festival. The bitterness goes down easily only because of that great Newman paradox: The guy writes melodies of vulnerability and sweetness.

Bad Love lifts the curtain on a whole new cast of cranky malcontents. The narrator of "Shame" is an aging tycoon who has the hots for a strumpet. (He ends up ranting about his joints, his bladder, and his Lexus. Sound familiar?) "Great Nations of Europe" is a bouncy little ditty about genocide and disease; "The World Isn't Fair" is a postcard to Karl Marx. Beauty and bile go hand in hand--the ghosts of Tin Pan Alley and the French Quarter drift through these lush arrangements--but Newman's just teasing when he wraps it all up with a song called "I Want Everyone to Like Me." Brilliant as he may be, that's never going to happen.

--Jeff Gordinier

JEFF GORDINIER is a senior writer at Entertainment Weekly