Drew Smith
Drew Smith’s Lonely Choir
Fat Caddy; 2008
Growing up on a steady diet of pop country in the ‘80s and Christian pop in the ‘90s, it took me awhile to learn how to appreciate what pop music is and what it might actually sound like. Oh sure, my mother would occasionally pull out her LP’s from her teens and early 20’s and let us listen to The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and random outlaw country singers, but such respites from our typical fare were brief. By the time I listened to my friends’ tapes and the local mainstream radio as a teenager seeking out “secular” music, I was exposed to a mix of Seattle grunge and rap/hip-hop (both the West Coast fury of Tupac and the Third Coast grooves of my hometown UGK). Thus, it wasn’t until the middle of my time in college that I was able to a) be able to define what pop really is and could be, and b) not deride and decry it for the peppy, preppy schlock I thought it to be. It’s taken most of my adult life to realize that pop music can be good, filled with artful instrumentation, well-crafted lyrics, and finger-snapping, toe-tapping melodies.
Suffice to say that 10 years ago I wouldn’t have given Drew Smith and Drew Smith’s Lonely Choir a second listen. For starters, I would have mocked the Billy Joel-esque piano work as cheesy and annoyingly happy and then poked fun at the big, rich, deep horn section for attempting to bring orchestra instruments into pop/rock music. In general, I would have turned up my nose at his well-crafted pop-meets-folk-meets-country sound because it wasn’t drenched in the angsty lyrics, waves of feedback, and/or thudding bass that I then associated with “good” music. I would have missed how Drew and his Lonely Choir have put together an alternately fun and contemplative eleven-song album full of smiles, frowns, love, loss, and the occasional swipe at unthinking record labels.
The opening cut, “Nilsson Sings Newman,” sounds exactly like what the title implies: a delightful ditty in the style of Harry Nilsson and Randy Newman. The band ramps things up with a rollicking sound and swooping horns on “NYC Song,” while “Silver Pictures” finds the band sitting around their favorite bar with friends as they pluck, strum, and lick their wounds after a long week out in the world. The penultimate song, “Are You Lonely?,” is a jangly banjo-and-piano fronted track that imagines Drew and the band sauntering down a street looking for people who are lonely like they used to be in hopes cheering them up a bit. Soaked in large chunks of upbeat country/rock, piano-led pop, and Being There-era Wilco, Drew Smith’s Lonely Choir is required listening for anyone who loves Texas Country, classic pop songwriting, and any/all teeny-boppers who might normally piss on quality music that’s outside their typical spectrum. Drew’s music is supremely smile-inducing.