"Golden Delicious" by Mike Doughty (ATO records) - Out now
Put a guy on stage with an acoustic guitar and the results can be just plain painful. Some are whiny, some are lady-baiters (hello, John Mayer) and some are just plain lame.
It's pretty tough not to fall into any of these categories, but former Soul Coughing front man Mike Doughty avoids the typical singer-songwriter stereotypes. His sophomore solo album, "Golden Delicious," would be a masterpiece if only he avoided a seemingly endless string of annoying hooks.
Here's a brief (if incomplete) list of the ear-bug oddities:
1. On "Fort Hood," he kidnaps the chorus to "The Flesh Failures (Let the Sunshine in)" from "Hair" (you know, "let the sunhine in").
2. On "I Just Want the Girl in the Blue Dress to Keep On Dancing," he keeps singing "brrmbpdpdmdm." If you can't pronounce that, think of "Little Drummer Boy."
3. On "More Bacon than the Pan Can Handle," he uses a clip of some annoying kid repeating the song's title, the words "utility man" and "yeah, yeah, yeah."
The odd thing is despite all that, it's still not a bad album.
Doughty is pretty unpretentious in putting his words to music, using any musical influence, be it Motown, funk or even '70s-era glam. He and his backing band switch between styles easily, aiming for what Doughty calls the "dude theory" - a bunch of dudes hanging around and playing music.
Doughty is equally unpretentious with his lyrics, staying straightforward and down to earth."Fort Hood" is his ode to the troops and the Texas Army base that has seen the heaviest losses in the Iraq war. He admits that he'd rather do just about anything than fight in a distant land. But his compassion seeps out, wishing that those who fight and those who have fallen could be home and just act like kids.
That's about as political as Doughty gets, though. The rest of the time, he's addressing some girl or another. He brought back an earlier tune, "27 Jennifers," his ode to the name that seemingly every parent chose in the late '70s (the rest, of course, chose Heather).
While most of "Golden Delicious" clips by at a brisk pace, he slows down to get introspective-sounding with "I Got the Drop on You" and the beautiful "Wednesday (Contra la Puerta)." Some tunes, like "Navigating by the Stars at Night" hew closely to his formula from his brilliant 2005 release, "Haughty Melodic," but there's enough separation to qualify this as a step forward.
And even if there are a few too many na-na-nas and brrmbpdpdmdms, he's still plenty of fun to listen to.
Download this song now: "Wednesday (Contra la Puerta)"
Where to get it:
eMusic
iTunes
Amazon
