I liked Lou's last album, Coney Island Baby, for its integrity, combativeness, and character, but Rock and Roll Heart flashes none of these qualities. Lou promised this would be a rock 'n' roll album, but I call it stuff 'n' nonsense. For the most part, these tracks are merely notations for songs, unfinished sketches of ideas that are pretty stale anyway. Unlike Coney Island Baby, this collection sounds almost completely insincere; how suddenly he forfeited that self-assured conviction. It's the record of an artist out of touch with his core, so he clowns around instead—anything to entertain, eh?…

"Banging On My Drum" sounds like a warmup for [the New York Dolls's] "Personality Crisis," and the words make [the Ramones's] "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue" seem deep by comparison. "You Wear It So Well," drenched in the sarcastic ooze of Berlin, rings truest to Lou's conflicted persona...