Badly Drawn Boy
It's What I'm Thinking Pt. 1-Photographing Snowflakes
Much like Chris Rock’s bit about finding the right mate, (”you’re never gonna find someone that likes Seinfeld and The Wu-Tang Clan…”), music aficionados often have staunchly guarded lines of genre demarcation where never the twain shall meet. A recent discussion with a few fellow hip-hop heads produced the unlikely postulation, “is it possible to like M.O.P. and Morrissey at the same time?” The answer is a resounding yes especially in these metro-musical days of blog-fed mass information.
Therefore, the quiet melancholy of Badly Drawn Boy’s latest effort is the perfect companion piece to you party-kids’ rowdy reveling. Yes, that last shot of Patron wrecked your game in front of the shapely girl with the leggings and vintage RUN-DMC shirt (yes she was wearing a La Perla bustier under it but Christ that made her even more desirable), at least there is music like this to help you lick your wounds.
Damon Gough won a Mercury Award for his 2000 debut The Hour Of The Bewilderbeast then ascended the typical fame arc, recording the soundtrack to adored chick-flick About A Boy, went the major label route switching from XL to EMI in 2006 and fell into a career abyss promptly thereafter. After last year’s universally panned Is There Nothing We Could Do?, BDB should be back on terra firma with singer/songwriter devotees on this latest offering. 10 tracks that speak to very personal bouts of disillusionment, homesickness and romantic defeat that also let the listeners in and wade into their own misfortunes and follies.
Producer Stephen Hilton’s light-handed touches mesh well with the mood of the brooding Briton, but the hints at electronica keep things lively enough throughout, particularly on the cuts “The Order Of Things” and “This Electric.” The lead single, “Too Many Miracles,” is probably the most upbeat song sponsored here (check out the Michel Gondry-esque vid if you like) but in the end, this is all sorrow-drowning music, a soundtrack for the autumn and impending winter; fireplace-stoking, brandy snifter in hand, looking back on the year’s laments and trying not to let the sum total of those shroud some of the triumphs.
Things tend to bog down just a bit by the overly long track 6 (the title track) owing to the fact that many listeners probably don’t need to absorb so much angst in one sitting, but things finish off tidy enough so your cutlery set should remain in the cabinet. There are a few other little subtle touches on this album that remind us that life is for the living, such as the sound of shaking dice, the lighting of a match and the subsequent blowing it out.
The longer you live, the more pain you shall feel. This is the axiom you can take from this album. It’s also OK to break down, as long as you find the resolve to shake it off, hard as that may be. Perhaps you will even learn to sing for your supper, so go ahead and go to the club where your favorite DJ is spinning, lose your mind and your shit, hit on the girl that’s out of your league, there’s always The Cure, The Smiths and even Badly Drawn Boy to pick up the pieces your dumbass left on the dancefloor.
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