Having over 3,000 8-tracks,albums,cassettes and/or C.D.s does not make you a music expert. If nothing else it sort of numbs you to the sameness of it all and can burn you out to the corperation's ideal.Be it Sinatra, Nirvana,Metallica or Britney Spears,if you buy music based on name or style alone you can't be sure of the quality of the music you're getting. But you buy anyway in hopes of finding that 'album'that makes you want to play it over & over again.MTV ,ironically,has taken this vision out of most modern C.D.s(even movie soundtracks aren't what they used to be),so ,how do you define 'good-music'? I define it thus :If I hum it at work/If I can't crank it loud enough(when applicable). Such a 5 star gem is Warren Zevon's 'Transverse City'.The album as a whole compares to any classic(ie;'London Calling' or 'Slowhand'),but has 4 standout songs.These 4 are 'Splendid Isolation(an at work favorite);'Nobody's In Love This Year';'The Long Arm Of The Law',and what I consider one of the ALL TIME ROCK CLASSICS,'Run Straight Down'.WOW ,what a jam.I ,personally,can not get enough of this song. I haved cranked it until my ears have rung,and it still wasn't LOUD enough.I wish that David Gilmore would do more with Warren Zevon ,because Mr. Gilmore had not played this well in years.How a finely crafted song like this does not get radio over-played is beyond me.

These sounds got me through too many mean nights in Tokyo. Perfect soundtrack for WmGibson's first couple of books.

This is a great Warren disc and a must for any collector. The electronic keyboard dominance in places through me at first, but I quickly came to appreciate it as strongly contributing the whole feel of the album. Available as an import only? A crime. Someone should pick this one up.

I was hooked on Transverse City right away. I call Zevon a "pop prophet" because the album was published in 1989, right on the cusp of the 90's. The title track to me exemplifies the direction that I felt 90's music was going to take - a touch of glam, with a harder, rocking edge. Instead, 90's music went right into RapLand and Grungeville. Although Zevon's themes of urban decay and traffic are rooted in the 70's, he's ahead of the curve with his witty song "Networking" and also with Transverse City itself. The eponymous city isn't a place, so much a notion of a future where people can indulge their whims and fantasies, probably in some sort of street-kiosk VR booths. I love the cerebral stuff; he mentions the twin forces of "shear and torsion" and talks about entropy in "run straight down." And the cool part is that you just know that he knows what he is talking about, that he isn't just using these buzzwords to sound smart. Definitely an underrated album of his - ironically, his most accessible is also the least available.

Would have given it 4.5 stars if allowed (not perfect so no 5). Zevon's best album since his first and almost scary in his ability to analyze the world before the fact. If you like Zevon and don't have this one then get it!