Song of the day – 618: Eleanor Friedberger
Listen, I know. It’s Nick Lowe, basking in the adulation of a thousand juvenile rock writers grown up believing that the mid-70s pub rock interpretation of the blues is the highest form of Pop. It’s Paul McCartney, all swaggering mateship and head bobbing inanely to one side. It’s Rockpile, without the Elvis Costello connection.
It’s chock full of every rock cliché you care to name and some definitely best left unnamed. One note follows another, like a marching band processional. One song follows another, the way swatches follow each other in a sample book. It’s The Pretenders, minus the loops and laces. It’s easy-going angst. It’s reprehensible on nearly every level – those chugging guitars! those chugging drums! that oom-pah rhythm! those meaningless personal touchstones! that breathy enthusiasm! – and likable on nearly none. But I cannot FUCKING HELP MYSELF.
I LOVE THE NEW ELEANOR FRIEDBERGER ALBUM! It is, by some distance, my most-played album of 2013, and not just cos I’m a wannabe menopausal disjointed disillusioned forgotten irrelevant and bitter male music critic in his early 50s. I love the Herman Dune too. And this is the same golden mile. I refuse to be cowed! I refuse to be embarrassed! There are no guilty pleasures, only self-image problems. Thank you, Ms Friedberger, thank you. You have made this disjointed redundant hack happy. Every time he listens to you, you make him happy.
Very, very happy.
“She was wearing a pair of dungarees and so I sang ‘Come On Eileen’”
