Man, seems all I ever do here is talk about music. Well, what else is there to talk about?
I don’t often feel moved to write actual reviews of albums. But this one seems to deserve it. I felt like I had to write something about it, and this blog is the only real place to do it. So here goes.
Well, the debut album by Bryan Scary, The Shredding Tears has received phenomenal hype amongst my (very) little clique. So, it was only a matter of course that I had it as a request on oink, that being the fastest known way in the universe to receive any new music – I’ll buy it, of course, lest anyone suspect I don’t financially support the artists I enjoy. But if you haven’t heard of Bryan Scary and don’t care for the latest New York hipster indie nonsense, feel free to skip the rest of this review.
And now I’ve spent a few days with it, I have a complex opinion. Yes, it’s brilliant – genius, even. But something’s strange about it. Could be the album of the year if it wasn’t so .. indulgent.
Let me put it this way. This album could have been written by John Lennon at his best, if John Lennon didn’t, you know, have to pay the bills. Some people have the opinion that removing all constraints on an artist is the best way to unleash his best potential. But I think this album is a good demonstration that this principle is ill-founded – Bryan could have benefited from the constraints commercial necessity impose in this album, which is rambling, disjointed and flits from whim to fleeting whim in the unfakeable style of someone who isn’t worrying about how to pay the rent.
Do I like the album? Absolutely. Will I listen to it, all the way through, regularly? I’m not sure. I don’t mind an artist taking liberties with his music. But when that artist expects my time and money in exchange for his art, I expect at least a nod towards my enjoyment. I don’t, for example, particular wish to hear lyrics like this:
Maybe one day they’ll forgive
And try me out again
Until then I’ll just sit here waiting
A scrap of metal trash they’ve created
Rightio then. You just keep sitting there Bryan. I’m sure all your arty New York friends think these kind of lyrics are just oh so meaningful and poetic, but I’m Australian, and we have a simple word which summarises pretty much everything about that kind of writing: bullshit.
Anyway, I still recommend the album, since despite the total wank dripping from every pretentious word he sings, it’s still brilliant and you don’t see that too often these days, especially from these spoiled indie cocksuckers living at home with their parents. Hopefully he’ll go on a drug-crazed party spree, get way into debt, and be forced to make a more commercial second album characterised by compromised recognition of, you know, listener enjoyment and relevance. But it’s still worth getting, although I don’t know if I’ll end up buying it.
Final rating would be 8/10. Would have been higher but I’m pissed off at the waste on display here. I’m sure Mr. Scary won’t read this, but if he did, my advice would be: “stop listening to your stupid friends who all say everything you do is so cool, and try and make the best album ever, for real, because you know, and I know you know, that this kind of crap doesn’t cut it if you ever want to be remembered.”
I guess I’ll end with a quote from another arty New York band with whom I have enjoyed a lifelong love affair:
I saw the best minds of my generation
destroyed by madness, starving, hysterical
Yeah, I also saw them destroyed by being spoilt fucking brats.
UPDATE: I decided to change my review, but didn’t really know what to write. I’d like to emphasize that my negative reaction detailed above applies to only two songs on a 15-song album. Also I’d like to point out that despite my tone, this is without any doubt my album of the year for 2006. It’s a fantastic album. I’ll still stand by my assertion that it suffers somewhat from a kind of indulgence on the part of the artist .. but after you’ve listened over 30 times, as I now have, you forget all about that, and just enjoy what you do like, and there’s a lot of that.
