Warrant: Cherry-Pie -- Quality You Can Taste

”Where is it written that musicians have to be smart?” Eric Clapton once asked. In fact, nearly 30 years after the Beatles theoretically destroyed the myth of the rock-star-as-monosyllabic-troglodyte, it’s still surprising somehow when a popular band can walk and chew gum at the same time. In that spirit, this new collection of Warrant videos, Cherry Pie — Quality You Can Taste (the songs interspersed with tour footage and backstage philosophizing) should have some appeal for both fans and nonfans; the group members come off as modestly articulate lite-metal professionals, at times bemused by the stunted adolescent worldview that defines their calling, and even capable of occasional wit (the line about thinking of baseball in the title tune/sex anthem, for example, is genuinely funny). Otherwise, of course, this tape is just what you’d expect from a best-selling Big Hair party act — i.e., a real-life emulation of 1984’s This Is Spinal Tap — but at least you get the feeling that the Warrant guys are on some level aware of that. C+