The Grateful Dead

"Touch of Grey," the song of rejuvenation and reconciliation that opens In the Dark, is a
fairly obvious state-of-the-Dead message, from its bright melody to its "I will get by/I will
survive" chorus. But another one of its lines – "Oh, well, a touch of grey kind of suits you
anyway" – also speaks volumes. Unlike the Dead's shaky output since their last memorable
album, 1974's From the Mars Hotel, this album bespeaks an effortlessness long ab... More >

Despite the hooks, highlighted unnaturally by do-or-die production, this is definitely the Dead, not Journey or Starship. But only "When Push Comes to Shove," a ruminative catalogue of paranoid images that add up to one middle-aged man's fear of love, shows up the young ignorami and old fools who've lambasted them as symbols of hippie complacency since the '60s were over. One problem with the cosmic is that it doesn't last forever. (Grade: C+)