Just before I commenced this prolific splurge of writing about my experiences of specific songs, I wrote a pretty carefully considered piece called 'The Alt-Country Middleweights', about my love for a certain strand of underachieving Americana. Fittingly, considering the subject matter, that post has had fewer pageviews than almost any other on this blog.
There is just something distinctly uninviting about the term alt-country middleweight, so I expect this post to be equally as unviewed, as it's about one of the kings of the breed, Brendan Benson.
It's a little bit of a stretch to call Brendan Benson alt-country - I'll get to that in more detail, but powerpop is generally a better description of his songwriting style. Particularly on 'Lapalco', the album from which the song 'Eventually' comes.
When I was compiling my list of The Greatest Albums of All Time, you may remember I admitted the one thing I hadn't given enough weight to was simply the most important thing of all i.e. how good all the songs are.
So, by that token, notwithstanding success, impact, emotional resonance, influence etc, I think 'Lapalco' might be one of the greatest albums ever made. Because all the songs on it are really really good.
It's the rarest and most gratifying thing with an album, when you first listen to it track by track and you go "oh, that one's good, oh, so's that one, this one too, it'll peter out soon, oh no, this one's better, this is the best, this one too etc etc all the way to the end". So it is with Lapalco - all killer, no filler.
'Eventually' is one of the songs from the relentlessly enjoyable middle section, not even necessarily my favourite, that might be 'What' - crunching and simple and deceptively affecting every single one.
Some critics of the likes of Benson and Josh Rouse say their lyrics are banal and boring, but I really don't find that - to me, they're simple, well-crafted and deft. I'm thinking of doing a post on what makes great lyricism but it can be the least obvious thing sometimes.
In this song, the way Brendan Benson sings "Oh girl, you've got to stay with me, things are going to get better eventually" is one of my favourite lyrics of all time - I can't really explain why, it's just the way he plays around with the phrasing, the self-mockery, the silliness, but also desperation. It's just perfect.
'Lapalco' is Benson's finest hour, which is not to say he has not maintained a very good standard - indeed my single favourite song of his is 'The Alternative to Love' (in this concert footage, his band appears to consist of other legends of US power-pop The Posies, which is fun) - and, happily, he has not entirely wallowed in obscurity.
Thanks to Benson's friendship with the considerably more famous and charismatic Jack White, The Raconteurs came into being and did really rather well - funnily enough, one of the few times I've ever written to a music magazine was a rather grumpy disparagement of Jack White's dominance of Uncut's Best of Decade 2000-2010 List, wherein I described White as nothing but the second most talented songwriter in The Raconteurs. To me, that's true, but I get that it's a fatuous and cock-eyed thing to say.
He's still going strong (for a middleweight) - indeed there was a single this week and a song a year or two ago called 'Last Night in Detroit' - up until that point he'd been a resident in that city, but he's relocated to Nashville, and it's just possible his taking a little more of a country-ish direction, which is all to the good.
I've tried to keep some variety in the kind of songs I write about in this blog, their genre, their success, how much I like them, but if it should just turn into me banging the drum for underrated songwriters I think people should pay heed to, well, there's nothing wrong with that.
No comments:
Post a Comment