the trenchant nature of bubbly-on-the-surface pop tunes such as the U.S. Top 20 single "Perfect Way" ("You want a margin of error for two") and "The Word Girl" ("The girl was never real / She stands for your abuse"). With veteran Aretha/Dusty/Bee Gees cohort Arif Mardin on board for several cuts, and contributions by pop subversives such as Fred Maher and Robert Quine, Cupid remains a classic of hyperintelligent post-new-wave pop funk. --Rickey Wright  (less)