Brendan Benson: My Old, Familiar Friend (Shock)

 |   |  1 min read

Brendan Benson: My Old, Familiar Friend (Shock)

Singer-songwriter Benson had already pumped out three albums under his own name before he came to greater attention as a member of the Raconteurs alongside Jack White.

That profile will gain attention for this often hugely poppy outing in which he seems to channel the spirit (and sometimes the chord changes) of those old, familiar songs and bands he fell in love with while listening to radio as a teenager.

Anyone familiar with the alphabet of power-pop from Badfinger and Big Star through Cheap Trick and Dwight Twilley to the Raspberries, Shoes and on to Wings will be comfortable with hook-filled songs like Eyes on the Horizon, Poised and Ready, Misery and the piano ballad You Make a Fool Out of Me.

With widescreen production by Gil Norton (Foo Fighters, Pixies) and songs big on melodies and choruses, Benson delivers a diverse set which is refreshingly angst-free in tone even if the lyrics may be appropriately jaded.

Benson -- who plays just about everything -- also indulges in another side of pop radio-friendly songs: string-embellished sweet post-disco soul-pop (Garbage Day); some Billy Joel-meets-Wings (Gonowhere); an 80s synth-pulse (Feel Like Taking You Home) . . .

Older heads may be ticking off influences or references.

If Jack White has sometimes been intent on reviving the spirit of Led Zeppelin, here Benson seems to make the case for solo McCartney, power-pop, 70s Todd Rundgren and Joel.

This is pop music of various kinds, and while it hardly breaks new ground there’s no denying it is -- like most pop -- a lot of singalong, air-punch enjoyment and pleasingly disposable.

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Music at Elsewhere articles index

Public Image Ltd: What the World Needs Now . . . (PiL Official/Southbound)

Public Image Ltd: What the World Needs Now . . . (PiL Official/Southbound)

While John Lydon will always have points in for the Sex Pistols, the early PiL albums and even the 2012 This is PiL, he's certainly done his best to lose them without much effort. Like this one... > Read more

Various Artists: The Ramones Heard Them Here First (Ace/Border)

Various Artists: The Ramones Heard Them Here First (Ace/Border)

Always intertesting to quote Shakespeare in the context of the Ramones, but the Bard said (in King Lear), "Nothing will come of nothing". And the minimalist sound of the Ramones... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . JEANNE DECKERS: From heaven to oblivion on the wings of a song

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . JEANNE DECKERS: From heaven to oblivion on the wings of a song

When the virginal singer Jeanne Deckers – sometimes Jeannine -- enjoyed a sudden hit in the early Sixties it was clear to anyone outside her circle that her career could only go one of two... > Read more

DEADWOOD; TIMOTHY OLYPHANT INTERVIEWED (2006): It's always the quiet ones . . .

DEADWOOD; TIMOTHY OLYPHANT INTERVIEWED (2006): It's always the quiet ones . . .

There are few more quiet characters on television than Sheriff Seth Bullock who broods with repressed menace throughout the gritty Western series Deadwood. His dialogue usually comes down to a few... > Read more