[Outside] of (maybe) Woody Allen or Lily Tomlin, I don't think the Seventies have provided a single comic genius…. Steve Martin has yet to prove he's a great, funny man.

Martin isn't a talent anymore, he's a commodity. His first album, Let's Get Small, went platinum, winning a Grammy and several important cover stories in the process. The new LP, A Wild and Crazy Guy, promises to do a lot better. Yet it's a slovenly piece of work, slackly performed and miserably edited. The routines don't build—they're not even routines, in any real sense of the word. Instead, the comedian simply meanders from one random one-liner to the next, and he's not in a terrific hurry to get there either…. But from the sales and audience response, it's clear that his fans don't care. To them, Steve Martin can do no wrong, and they're buying whatever's offered...