Whether by plan or not, Cat Stevens's decision to renounce his phenomenally successful career as a singer-songwriter (and to embrace a life of spiritual education and charity) neatly coincided with the explosion of punk and new wave that would drastically reshape the pop landscape for decades to come. Released in December of 1978, Back to Earth would be the last of Stevens's pop career, an album with a recognizable, even slightly mature feel. But one doesn't have to scratch too far beneath the surface of the familiar, invitingly simple balladry here to find an artist wrestling with any number of weighty personal issues. Indeed, Stevens seems almost angry and bitter at the failed relationship of "Just Another Night," owns up to the edgy state of his sanity on "Bad Brakes," and displays a resigned fatalism on "Last Love Song" and "Never" that's ironic indeed coming from the artist who heralded the "Peace Train" with such convincing optimism. --Jerry McCulley