Song 86: The Moneymaker

This post will be two things 1) a look at a certain kind of pivotal moment in any artist's career 2) a list of my favourite songs by one of my favourite artists.

So, this, 'The Moneymaker', by Rilo Kiley, was the 1st single off their 4th (and last) full album, 'Under the Blacklight', and it was altogether a baffling affair. I'd got into Rilo Kiley in a big way in 2004/5 with the release of their previous album 'More Adventurous' - I'd been listening to that and their first two albums heavily. Jenny Lewis, the singer, had also released an excellent, highly acclaimed, solo album (with The Watson Twins) in 2006 which many critics had seen as a step up from Rilo Kiley, though I still preferred the indie-rock sheen of the band to the more country/gospel sound she attempted on 'Rabbit Fur Coat'.

Rilo Kiley were, it seemed, a band ready to go big. Everything had been a steady arc of success, Lewis seemed as cut-out for fame as any indie frontwoman could be. This album was going to be the band's major label debut, they'd hired some big time producers ...

And then came 'The Moneymaker' ...

So, first, let me say that, now, out of context, I quite like 'The Moneymaker'.

But ....

as Greil Marcus famously wrote of Dylan's 'Self Portrait' ... at the time, it was ...

What is this shit?

With its squelching, almost-funky sound, its lyrics and video about the sex industry, it was not the elegant indie-rock about the perils of young adulthood we'd come to expect ... or maybe it was ...

it was something, it was just not what it might have been ...

So there's a thing that happens sometimes where a band releases a single and it feels at the time, and with hindsight, like all the momentum goes ... just like that, and they're done for.

It can happen on a big or small scale. Emeli Sande's 2012 debut album was the best-seller of the whole year in the UK - trailed by the urgent, bold, but confusing single 'Hurts', the follow-up didn't even sell 1/10 as many. Or Embrace, whose 1998 album 'The Good Will Out', whatever you might think of it, sold a lot of copies and trademarked a kind of emotive indie rock which had a big market at the time - then their first single from the next album was the utterly baffling 'Hooligan', kazoo and all. 'Solomon Bites the Worm' by the Bluetones is another good example.

The question in those cases, as with Rilo Kiley, is "Why did you release that one?" What were you thinking? For it turned out in all cases that the album was far from a barren wasteland - there would have been much better, and most importantly, safer choices.

I understand the desire from bands to show they've got new moves, to put something out there that people weren't expecting. But it is surprising how often they choose their moment to do that pretty badly.

With Rilo Kiley, they split up not long afterwards. The album had received mixed reviews, sold moderately compared to expectation, and not maintained their momentum. One suspects that there were issues within the band notwithstanding the success of the record, but it still feels like they blew it.

But, you know, maybe they didn't, after all, really want to "make it". Or didn't quite know how. At the time of their biggest almost-hit 'Portions for Foxes', which is made for pop glory, I remember various critics saying ... why didn't they just call it 'Bad News', as the chorus goes? Then it could have been a proper hit.

I'm reminded of this terribly poignant thing Kevin Rowland said in a documentary about Dexys, where, in his wilderness years, a guy came up to him in a nightclub and asked "Why didn't you just do it, Kev?" ... and he looked kind of apologetic and baffled as he recalled.

I think of some of my other favourites, like SFA, who, kind of, really did want to "just do it" but then why do they take 3 minutes to get to the chorus of 'Northern Lites' and why is there a vocoder on 'Juxtapozed with U'.

I think Jenny Lewis has never quite been able to "just do it" and her music is all the better for it. Having said that, for me 'The Moneymaker' is a bit like quite a few of the songs on a couple of her solo albums where I felt she was trying too hard, trying to tell too many stories, at too many tempos, with too many ideas and too many characters, too much seediness and squalor.

Her very best work, with Rilo Kiley and as a solo artist, is, though hardly straightforward, just somehow more settled, less hyperactive.

With that in mind. Here are! My favourite Jenny Lewis songs! In order. I've got most of what she's released in there, probably not all, it's a bit rough.

I've found, from listening back to it a few times, that the Jenny and Johnny album from 2010 is better than I remembered, 'Under the Blacklight' is much much better than given credit for, but the middle two solo albums, 'Acid Tongue' and 'The Voyager' are still really uneven.

Anyway, here goes (I've left out the ones which are mainly sung by a male collaborator - the Johnathan Rice sung ones on the Jenny and Johnny album are quite good, most of the Blake Sennett ones, apart from 'Dreamworld', would be right at the bottom of the list anyway) ...

1. More Adventurous - Rilo Kiley
2. A Better Son/Daughter - Rilo Kiley
3. Godspeed
4. Pictures of Success - Rilo Kiley
5. With Arms Outstretched - Rilo Kiley
6. Taffy
7. The Absence of God - Rilo Kiley
8. The Execution of All Things - Rilo Kiley
9. Breakin' Up - Rilo Kiley
10. You Are What You Love
11. Dogwood
12. I Never - Rilo Kiley
13. Just One of the Guys
14. Paint's Peeling - Rilo Kiley
15. Under the Blacklight - Rilo Kiley
16. The Charging Sky
17. Portions for Foxes - Rilo Kiley
18. Spectacular Views - Rilo Kiley
19. It's a Hit - Rilo Kiley
20. Rise Up with Fists!!
21. Give a Little Love - Rilo Kiley
22. Hollywood Lawn
23. Does He Love You? - Rilo Kiley
24. Melt Your Heart
25. Sing a Song for Them
26. Late Bloomer
27. On the Line
28. Science vs. Romance - Rilo Kiley
29. It Just Is - Rilo Kiley
30. Silver Lining - Rilo Kiley
31. Runnin' Around - Rilo Kiley
32. Wasted Youth
33. Acid Tongue
34. Wires and Waves - Rilo Kiley
35. The Voyager
36. Heads Gonna Roll
37. Slippery Slopes
38. My Slumbering Heart - Rilo Kiley
39. Rabbit Hole
40. Little White Dove
41. The Big Guns
42. Red Bull & Hennessy
43. Runaway - Nice as Fuck
44. Jenny You're Barely Alive - Rilo Kiley
45. A Man/Me/Then Jim - Rilo Kiley
46. Go Ahead- Rilo Kiley
47. Always- Rilo Kiley
48. The Moneymaker - Rilo Kiley
49. Straight Edge of the Blade - Jenny and Johnny
50. Rabbit Fur Coat
51. Handle with Care - with collaborators
52. Big Wave - Jenny and Johnny
53. Do Si Do
54. Love U Forever
55. Party Clown
56. Capturing Moods - Rilo Kiley
57. Homerun - Nice as Fuck
58. All the Drugs - Rilo Kiley
59. Love and War (11/11/46) - Rilo Kiley
60. She's Not Me
61. Dejalo - Rilo Kiley
62. Teenage Love Song  - Rilo Kiley
63. Let Me Back In - Rilo Kiley
64. Draggin' Around - Rilo Kiley
65. Close Call - Rilo Kiley
66. Run Devil Run
67. New Yorker Cartoon - Jenny and Johnny
68. Happy
69. It'll Get You There - Rilo Kiley
70. You Can't Outrun 'Em
71. Born Secular
72. 15 - Rilo Kiley
73. The New You
74. Emotional - Rilo Kiley
75. Bad Man's World
76. The Good That Won't Come Out - Rilo Kiley
77. Carpetbaggers (with Elvis Costello)
78. I Remember You (feat. Benji Hughes) - Rilo Kiley
79. Plane Crash in C - Rilo Kiley
80. My Pet Snakes - Jenny and Johnny
81. Accidntel Deth - Rilo Kiley
82. Scissor Runner - Jenny and Johnny
83. Head Underwater
84. Angel - Nice as Fuck
85. Hail to Whatever You Found in the Sunlight That Surrounds You - Rilo Kiley
86. NAF Theme - Nice as Fuck
87. Smoke Detector - Rilo Kiley
88. It Wasn't Me
89. Pretty Bird
90. See Fernando
91. Glendora  - Rilo Kiley
92. So Long - Rilo Kiley
93. The Angels Hung Around - Rilo Kiley
94. Trying My Best to Love You
95. We'll Never Sleep (God Knows We'll Try) - Rilo Kiley
96. Cookie Lips - Nice as Fuck
97. The Highs And Lows Of Being #1 - Jenny and Johnny
98. While Men Are Dreaming - Jenny and Johnny
99. Bulletproof - Rilo Kiley
100. Jack Killed Mom
101. Guns - Nice as Fuck
102. The Next Messiah
103. Patiently - Rilo Kiley
104. Just Like Zeus - Jenny and Johnny
105. Mall Music - Nice as Fuck
106. About the Moon (feat. The Watson Twins)  - Rilo Kiley
107. Bury, Bury, Bury Another - Rilo Kiley
108. Committed  - Jenny and Johnny
109. Switchblade - Jenny and Johnny
110. American Wife - Rilo Kiley
111. Black Sand
112. The Frug - Rilo Kiley
113. 85  - Rilo Kiley
114. Door - Nice as Fuck
115. Don't Deconstruct - Rilo Kiley
116. Aloha & the Three Johns
117. A Town Called Luckey (feat. Tim Kasher) - Rilo Kiley
118. Higher - Nice as Fuck
119. Papillon  - Rilo Kiley
120. Sword  - Rilo Kiley
121. Pelican Bay - Jenny Lewis
122. Keep It Together  - Rilo Kiley
123. Gravity - Rilo Kiley
124. Troubadors - Rilo Kiley