having written about the music that pop levi makes before makes this somewhat unnecessary as there is very little to add that i haven’t said elsewhere. however, in case you missed it, pop levi is a singer songwriter who rather than wallowing in his self pity has prescribed to the idea that life is fun, lots and lots of fun, and that the 60s and 70s decades produced some of the best pop music ever.
so with these 2 ideas floating around, he decamped to some sun drenched spot on the planet, shed his ladytron electro pop history and reinvented himself as a hopeful successor to either marc bolan or prince, with a definite love for the perfect pop song.
the music is predominantly uptempo, upbeat and filled to the rafters with thrilling sonic twists and turns making these 11 tracks a cracking blast of manically layered pop music.
hence we get lashings of glorious glammed up fuzz guitars, plenty of handclaps, psychedelic backward effects, addictive acoustic guitar strumalongs, and the odd birdsong here and there, making this some kind of vast record collection being paraded in one 44 minute package.
my own personal favourites change each time i listen to the album, one minute i find the bo diddley styled rock-n-roll of dollar bill rock seriously annoying, yet the next play i listen beyond the looped guitar loop and experience the joy of the rumbing bassline and wonderfully mad false ending far more than is good for me.
yet for all the sparkling talent on offer, there is something that doesn’t quite gel correctly, as never far away, there is a feeling the album is constantly reaching out for classic status and not quite getting there, and so, with this in mind, two phrases keep surfacing : over ambitious, and contrived.
part of this is down to the fact that not all the songs hit the mark, flirting really grates and could have been dropped, this is followed by another jarring structure mournin’ light, and the somewhat desperate time filler see my lord, giving the album a mid section that struggles to maintain the needed wow factor, before we get to the final double set of wonderful songs that close the proceedings in fine style.
also, it should be stated that several of these songs have been aired elsewhere in a more complete form, the ‘hollywood’ version of the album closer from the day that you were born for example, making the album one that impresses a little more with each spin but with each listen the weakpoints become all the more pronounced.
however, as a one to watch out for talent i wouldn’t put it beyond the realms of possibility that pop levi could come back in a few months/years with a drop dead classic album, unfortunately, despite a couple of indicators this debut aint it.
more detail : here