Weedeaters In Paradise

 

But I digress, back to Challengers.  I listened to it the first time and it really didn’t seem like anything special.  I listened to it 2 more times after that and still no grand euphoria.  So I figuratively put the album up on the shelf and forgot about it.  One day later I decided to giveChallengers one last chance as I parked my car at the airport.  I kept it rolling as I entered the airport, waited for my flight, and boarded.  It was pure power pop bliss (And if you don’t know what "power pop" is, I suggest you purchase a copy of Challengers right frickin’ now and figure it out).

I don’t know what I was missing in previous listens, but this time around the album was absolutely wonderful.  Each song was as strong as the one before — the hooks were outstanding, the melodies , and the songs were immaculately crafted.  I was in love.  Little did I know at the time that a big part of what I enjoyed about the Pornographers was the songcraft of one Mr. Newman.

 

So when I heard that he had a new album coming out, my mission in life became to procure said album and find nirvana.  I knew Newman had released an album in 2004 called The Slow Wonder that I heard was pretty good, and I figured that maybe I should get familiar with this album before I delved into Get Guilty.  I ended up making Slow Wonder my part-time lover for a time and found that she–like Challengers–was a tease.   But perseverence paid off and after repeated listenings, I fell deeply in love with Slow Wonder.  

 

Enter Get Guilty.  The difference with this album is that it had me at hello.  On first listen I was amazed–the opener "There Must Be Ten or Twelve" is just an amazing song.  It’s not about great lyrics or the amazing musicianship of one of the players or even Newman’s voice–it’s the whole song, greater than the sum of the parts.  There’s just something there that is right and to try to break it down further than that seems to me like effort misplaced.  Further, the rest of the album is just as strong as the first track.

 

Newman’s lyricism is not what gets me–the songs are full of suggestion but I couldn’t tell you what any of the lyrics are about, and I think that’s the way Newman wants it.  No, what makes me shake in my shoes is the musicality, the songcraft.Check out how the break at the 1:56 mark of "The Heartbreak Rides" kicks the song into another stratosphere, or how the repetitive rhythm of "Thunderbolts" carries the song, or how Newman crafts a rock waltz in "The Changeling (Get Guilty)", and so on ad nauseum. Newman just knows how to make great pop music and if you listen to a lot of other perfectly good albums immediately after Guilty, you’ll find yourself thinking that something is lacking.  You may not know what exactly it is, but you’ll know that the other guy just doesn’t quite measure up.

 

And in the end, that’s why I can wholeheartedly recommend Get Guilty.  It really is that good.  None of the songs on Get Guilty, taken on their own, would necessarily shake the musical world with their originality or their experimentation–but for my money this is one of the mostlistenable collection of songs that’s likely to come out in a long time.  And in the end, isn’t that what we get music for?