This is also my 500th review! Happy arbitrary number day to me! I’ll also be doing a little recap, as is my wont when I reach such manufactured milestones.
Disc 500 is… Lover/Fighter
Artist: Hawksley
Workman
Year of Release: 2003
What’s up with the Cover? Like Tracy Chapman’s “New Beginning” this album
has two covers – so here they both are!
Apparently they are thematic – one is Hawksley Workman as “lover”
looking wounded and vulnerable in a ‘pale and wan poet’ sort of way. The other is Hawksley as “fighter” dressed up
in what he apparently thinks makes him look like a tough-guy outfit. It actually makes him look like a pale and
wan poet who is trying too hard. These
covers would be completely irredeemable except for the fact that they are
unintentionally hilarious.
How I Came To Know It: Sheila is the fan of Hawksley Workman so she bought
this album after hearing a couple songs on the radio (Hawksley was a big thing
back in the early oughts). I also knew
about him through a woman I worked with about ten years ago who was a big fan.
How It Stacks Up: We only have two Hawksley Workman albums, this one
and the preceding year’s “The Delicious Wolves.” Of the two, this is the better record. We used to have a third album, 2006’s
“Treeful of Starlings” which after we heard it was about as welcome as the
starling is to the Canadian ecosystem.
It was sold shortly after we got it.
Rating: 3 stars but close to 4.
“Lover/Fighter”
is an awkward title for an album, but it ably describes the record’s themes,
which revolve around desire and how it drives us to all sorts of dumb, divisive
but beautiful things.
The
songs are deeply romantic in places, but Workman infuses them all with a bit of
sadness or discord. Song titles like “Wonderful and Sad” and “Anger as Beauty” are indicative of the
kind of duality Workman is going for throughout the record. In places it edges toward bathos, but overall
he keeps the ship afloat.
The
style is classic Canadian pop, where the riffs are good but subdued into the
arrangement (we Canadians are so polite, even with our guitar solos) and the
urge to include a lot of piano or other instrumentation is rarely denied.
Workman
has a wonderful pop voice, with a lot of range that he keeps tastefully
restrained when he sings. There is
nothing worse in pop music than excessive warbling just for the sake of showing
off (think Mariah Carey or most of the American Idol contestants that fawn over
her). Workman climbs up the scale only
when the song calls for it.
The
highlight of the record was also a single, the unfortunately titled “No Reason To Cry Out Your Eyes (On the
Highway Tonight).” The song is brilliantly arranged, with cooing backup
singers and a groovy little synthesizer riff that makes you want to dance
around. Of course if you’re driving,
please restrain yourself.
The
lyrics of the song aren’t terribly memorable, with Workman reminding you that the
cars you seen on a highway at night are filled with tons of people crying; lost
in their own misery. Despite the theme
the tune is uplifting, a soothing hug for people quietly suffering. Hey, it seems to say, here’s a hug and a cup
of hot cocoa, you’ll be OK.
“Smoke, Baby” was another hit and it has
a sexy, sultry vibe to it. This is a
song to turn the lights down low and shut the cat out of the bedroom. It would be perfect except for a strange
decision to put an awkward rap section at the bridge by some woman called “Graph
Nobel” who is apparently another Canadian pop artist. She raps well enough, but I just don’t think
it adds to the song.
Earlier
this week I decided against going to see KISS when they come to town. This was partly because it wouldn’t be the
same without Ace Frehley and partly because I am just sick and tired of Gene
Simmons and his constant self-promotion.
These thoughts were in my head listening to “Even An Ugly Man” which goes:
“Even an ugly man
Could kiss your lips
As if they were his to demand of
Or his to destroy like a lover of
a demon.”
I doubt
this song is about Gene Simmons, but I like to pretend that it is.
The
album has a slight air of smugness about it that I don’t like. This is not surprising from a singer who
feels the need to change his name from Ryan Corrigan – a perfectly good name –
to Hawksley Workman, which is not measurably any cooler. That’s the kind of ego that will lead you to
put silly pictures of yourself on your album covers.
After
the ten listed tracks, there are two hidden ones, which was an annoying quality
of CDs from this era. Both are OK – in fact
the first one, “Ilfracombe” is really
cool. The song is half exploration of
the pros and cons of motorbikes, and half a philosophical treatise on how
sometimes our desire for a free, unfettered life can have a hint of decay and wastefulness
about it. There’s that “Lover/Fighter”
duality again!
Regardless
of whether I like the two extra songs, there is no real reason to not just
include them as songs 11 and 12 – still tastefully within my fourteen song
maximum (for those just joining the Odyssey train, I think most albums with
more than fourteen songs should have left something on the cutting room floor).
This
album was a critical darling when it came out, and it is easy to see why. It is ambitious pop music, and Workman seems
willing to push the envelope of pop music, which is a genre in desperate need
of such treatment. It isn’t perfect, but
it is a good album that doesn’t settle for easy wins.
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