If you loved the Pulitzer divorce trial, you'll love this record. Cristina's Sleep It Off is a graduate course­corse may be more like it­in upscale decadence, a grimly hilarious gavotte through the titled apocalypso, powered by producer Don Was' incisive musical settings and Cristina's ravaged, yowling vocals. The effect is somewhere in between Marianne Faithfull and the Flying Lizards, and the music is more enjoyable than either.

As on the most recent Was (Not Was) LP, Don Was conjures a plethora of musical styles to complement Cristina (whose vocal abilities, admittedly, will not have Linda Thompson pacing the floor). The Sex Pistols-style roar of "Don't Mutilate My Mink," for instance, adds just the crunch necessary to fill out her, ah, unsentimental account: "My night dress is expensive/I don't want to see it soiled." No less naive is "Ticket to the Tropics," whose chipper hooks can't obliterate lines like, "You said, 'Wouldn't it be very hot if we did this in the sun?'/You said, 'My cash flow's very low, but you know it can be done.'" Even the covers are sizzlers, from a winkingly lyrical version of Van Morrison's "Blue Money" to an outright brilliant rendition of "Ballad of Immoral Earnings" from Threepenny Opera....

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