Though Freedy Johnston's This Perfect World was one of the best CDs of the '90s, the ''Bad Reputation'' guy has barely maintained any rep lately. (His last disc of new songs was in 2001.) Johnston had been tinkering with Rain on the City for years, yet it doesn't betray any fussiness: Character studies don't get more minimalist than ''Lonely Penny,'' a sonnet to a coin on the sidewalk, or ''The Kind of Love We're In,'' a deceptively sunny bossa nova about a love's impending failure. Your gratitude for his economical writing may overcome your wonderment over why something so modest took so long. B+
Download This: Listen to the song Don't Fall in Love With a Lonely Girl at last.fm
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