HARD TO LOVETT (1994)

Put bluntly, Lyle Lovett is not so well-established a musical artist that he can indulge himself by releasing his juvenilia, yet that is what his fifth album, I Love Everybody(MCA), amounts to. A freshly recorded collection of songs he wrote between 1977 and 1986, the material here reveals a Lovett who hadn't fine-tuned his irony to the impeccable pitch it now has. Instead, he comes off like a hick version of Randy Newman: When Lovett sings on ''Fat Babies'' that the little tykes ''make me ill'' and complains about their drool, you know he's just trying for the sort of mannerly shock value Newman did better on ''Short People.'' I Love Everybody has a lovely, creamy sound-Lovett's usual combination of shuffle beats and country-jazz guitar noodlings are supplemented with witty guest turns by Leo Kottke and Rickie Lee Jones, among others. But the cutesiness of tunes such as ''Creeps Like Me,'' and ''Skinny Legs'' curdles the music.

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