[On "For Everyman" Jackson Browne] presents a moody catalogue in which nothing is quite right: Life doesn't make too much sense; love and work don't quite work out; there is meaning, but not enough meaning, in the experience of being alive. Browne's melodies are not terribly fresh; his lyrics are not particularly original. But the tone of his work is perfectly suited to those overpowering and ambivalent adolescent moods that are so chic when one is of college age. While his work collapses under scrutiny, Browne—much like such novels as [J. D. Salinger's] The Catcher in the Rye—is an effective expression of the more romantic phases of the growing-up process.