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MP3 Joel Streeter - Hear Me Out
11 MP3 Songs
ROCK: Acoustic, POP: Beatles-pop
Details:
Review from Delusions of Adequacy (https://www.tradebit.com):
Seemingly all of America''s cherished 18-34 demographic is walking around with an entire catalog of CDs wired into its noggins by two tiny white buds. Every hipster in Christendom can now instantaneously skip over those tired Beatles CDs they burned from their parents and cue up some rocking indie band they heard on last week''s One Tree Hill. In today''s disposable musical climate, Warhol''s 15-minutes has been scaled back to roughly the fraction-of-a-chorus length of an iPod commercial.
Hear Me Out, the solo debut from San Francisco-based singer/songwriter Joel Streeter, just so happens to be the quintessential anti-disposable album. Like many of his less talented contemporaries, Streeter''s primarily interested in an exercise in a certain type of retro aesthetic. But, Hear Me Out''s vintage sensibilities extend to its sonic complexity and depth and a seemingly conscious return to the dogged studio mastery and songsmithing more common to late 60s and early 70s pop than to today''s latest retrofitted rehash acts.
Formerly of Gettysburg, PA''s Fizgigg and, more recently, of Washington, DC''s, Spy Cellar, Streeter is nothing less than an avowed melody junkie. Streeter has a keenness for the bittersweet and pathos-laden melodies practiced by McCartney and Badly Drawn Boy, the kind of humable tunes whose darker corners are covered in silky, professional pop.
The album''s ascendant opener, "All or Nothing," cuts expertly with Spectorish glockenspiel and multi-layered five-part harmony vocals by producer Jerry Becker, perfects this formula by sounding simultaneously mournful and triumphant. Becker, who''s worked with former Train guitarist Rob Hotchkiss and veteran drummer Eric Kurtzrock (who''s backed David Byrne among others), seems to have developed the ideal support system for Streeter''s rare pop sensibilities. At various times surrounded by upright piano, acoustic and electric guitars, and accordion, Streeter comfortably updates everything from the darker tones of Wilco to the lighter moods of Elliott Smith.
On the mid-tempo shuffle of "One More Reason" or the breezy modern lament of "Stay Living," Streeter''s uncannily successful at creating contagiously singable power-pop with purpose. On the eminently catchy "Stay Living," Streeter, quite slyly, could be commenting on either on his song''s political pundit or the state of pop itself, "Another Monday on cable now, the capital brigade / Whoah, I think I know him / Like I know my cereal, my clothing brand, myself on a bad day."
Streeter''s melodic gifts seem to always be intermingled with the emotional maturity of his songs. Sure, he wants us to Hear Him Out. But Streeter''s rightly got no easy sonic or lyrical answers, and he is intent on escaping pitfall of countless debuts that usually succeed in doing only one thing really well. Hear Me Out seems to do everything really well - from the acoustic intimacy of "One More Reason" to the offhanded OK Computer reference on the album''s closing track, to the anthemic, zero-irony buoyancy of "Pavement (Everything is Alright)" and "Always So." Clear evidence of an indispensable songwriting talent, Streeter''s debut is as likely to propel Streeter into the O.C. soundtrack category as it is to win over a sizable cadre of grizzled indie-pop fanatics.
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