Robert Christgau Word of the Day

sven·ga·li n. A person who, with evil intent, tries to persuade another to do what is desired. (dictionary.reference.com)

Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band Unconditionally Guaranteed [Mercury, 1974]

I've always suspected that underneath the naive surrealism the Captain might be a dumbbell, and now that he's really (really really) trying to go commercial he's providing proof. This time he really (really) does it--writes dumb little songs with dumb little lyrics and dumb little hooks. Maybe all the dumb dumb parts can be blamed on svengali and cocomposer Andy DiMartino. And I admit that a lot of these are passable ("Magic Be") to wonderful ("Sugar Bowl") dumb little songs. But they're still dumb. Really. B- (www.robertchristgau.com)