Recommended: Leann Grimes – I’m Not Too Skinny

I know that this blog, being representative of my music tastes, tends towards the “dark” and “noisy” ends of the musical spectrum, often serving up both at the same time. I APOLOGIZE FOR NOTHING. This is what interests me now and considering my age*, is probably NOT a “phase.”

*Quite possibly older than you think, but I skew younger thanks to my boyish good looks and childlike fascination with swearing.

But that’s not ALL I am. I’m not always searching out the darkest corners armed with a flashlight with a beam made of out feedback and faulty electronics. I’m also a fan of ear-pleasing noises, which aren’t, in fact, noisy at all, but rather suitable for all ages (possible exceptions: 7 and 43.) I can be just as suckered in by poplike art as the next childlike post-teen with a potty mouth. I like stuff I can hum. I like stuff that I can’t get out of my head. (Caveat: I have to be the one putting it there, not some Top 40 DJ pretending to be local while broadcasting from ClearChannel’s bomb shelter in the cold, steely heart of Industryville.)

Case in point: Leann Grimes. I’ve gushed in an almost embarrassing fashion about his music before. Having placed his debut album squarely at the top of a severely truncated Best of 2K11 list, I attempted to share my (manly, no doubt) crush on LG’s beautifully spun samples-and-beats with the world, or at least as much of the word that Yet Another WordPress Blog will reach.

Long story short: here’s another shortish story. This showed up in my (e)mailbox at the tail end of a soul-crushing day. You know those days where everything seems like the only way the dial’s going to budge from “bad” is when it heads to “worse,” and the most promising thing on the horizon is bedtime? One of those days. Even if you don’t know those days, play along.

Shane Conerty (Leann Grimes) graced me with an inadvertent care package just when I needed it. A brand new Leann Grimes album. If you’ve read my previous review, you’ll know why this is the best thing that could have happened at this moment. No one, I mean absolutely NO ONE, makes albums so full of sprightly tunes and pure celebratory joy as Leann Grimes. It was pure, ridiculous fate, like someone tapping you on your slumped shoulder and saying, “You look beat, brother. Life can be that way. It’s dangerous to go alone. Take this.”

LG celebrates the bliss of discovering new music you love and, like his last album, returns the favor to all the artists he (now) loves and the blogs that pointed him in these new directions, by crafting brisk, radio-ready (if radio didn’t suck ALL OF THE ASS EVER), bouncy, effervescent, drunk-on-life tracks that grab your ears with the enthusiasm of orally pleasured female approaching orgasm. (Seriously: we are hiring for the position of Metaphor Writer, citing specifically complaints from artists that they “can’t show these reviews to their mom.”)

I’ll post a few here and I motherfucking dare you to be unmoved. To sit there without a toe tapping or finger drumming or party ensuing. Because if you can’t move to this, you might need to have you soul removed and given to the nearest vampire-esque teen scowling away miserably, because chances are it might do them some good and shatter their face with unexpected smiling. Tell them it’s available for download on Friday the 13th and that will be all the excuse they’ll need to get up earlier than nightfall.

[How can you resist this? It features something that sounds like the only calliope ever that has never been tainted by clown proximity and it fucks around with your groove by shifting the tempo this way and that, much like Pepepiano’s famous “disconcertos.” And stay tuned for the sample near the end, which briefly resurrects 60s girl pop in Conerty’s own particular idiom, which means that it’s familiar but twisted.]

[This one samples an artist called “Gringo Starr,” whom I’m not familiar with but beginning to regret that fact with each re-reading of the name. At times this track resembles what would happen to 70s-era AOR (Steve Miller comes to mind) if someone made off with the master tapes and diced them all into tiny pieces and reassembled them later with the help of a Dirty Beatniks 12″ and none of the Original Manufacturer’s Instructions.]

[If you’re going to kick off an album, you could do a fuck-ton(ne) worse than Yeah, We Up, which kicks down the door, drags your groggy ass out of bed and heads to the hills, which presumably contain a speedy vehicle waiting to transport you to the Nearest Club of Your Choosing for a night of dancing, drinking and possible arrest, all in 2-1/2 minutes.]

You can stream it now to pre-get-your-groove-on. And as God is my witness, I wrote this entire “review” sitting outside like one of those cheerful, bongloaded hippies with a hardon for mother nature and sans natural aversion to sunlight. Like the sort of person I mentally punch in the face because of their obvious satisfaction in just doing nothing and getting high on life after getting high on everything else. I, for an undetermined amount of time, was THAT person, and you know what? LISTEN TO THIS ALBUM. It will make you more cheerful than should reasonably be expected under the circumstances. GO.

Note: Leann Grimes is also available in SOUNDCLOUD and Actual Band Form, not to mention the ever-popular Facebotnet.

/s/CLT