Bruce Mcclung

The Tunnel of Love tour again? That’s surely a sentiment some are expressing with this month’s release of New York 5/16/88, the outstanding opening night performance from the final, five-show stand on the US leg of the 1988 tour.

“This record being the third in a trilogy of song collections mostly based on film music I wrote for Spike Lee over the past few years, I wanted to move to some new stylistic places and maybe make a more upbeat record overall. We don’t get a ballad until #7, the pandemic shut-down era piece “Days Ahead” ( a duet with Danielle Haim). Lyrically the record is dotted with three Covid-related songs; the aforementioned, “Tag” and the album opener “Sidelines” (a duet with Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend), and otherwise ranges far afield with the world of science again a recurring influence (“Lidar” and “Point Omega”). The record also includes the first cover song I’ve ever put on a studio release, a total re-
imagining of Chuck Berry’s “Too Much Monkey Business.” The album title 'Flicted relates to this strange time in which we live, when the world is basically, well, ‘flicted!”