I’m a bit tired tonight after a long day, and I’m
looking forward to some couch surfing. But first…music!
Disc 879 is….Nice, Nice, Very Nice
Artist: Dan
Mangan
Year of Release: 2009
What’s up with the Cover? The profile of none other than
Her Majesty, Elizabeth II! This version
of Elizabeth has shades of rock and roll about her, with a crown featuring a
lightning bolt and a frog earing.
This is
one of the more clever album titles in my collection. “Nice, Nice, Very Nice”
is the title of the second chapter of Kurt Vonnegut’s classic book “Cat’s Cradle”
and “this is Mangan’s second album. Nicely played, Dan.
How I Came To Know It: I believe our friends Sherylyn
and Joel put us on to this Dan Mangan album. I haven’t seen or talked to either
of them in years, but I hope they are doing well.
How It Stacks Up: I have three of Dan Mangan’s albums, and “Nice,
Nice, Very Nice” is by far the best one. It isn’t even close.
Ratings: 3 stars but almost 4
It is
easy to hate on so-called ‘indie’ music these days, but listening to the very
indie-sounding “Nice, Nice, Very Nice” I had a hard time pitching in.
Hell, if
I was in my twenties right now I would probably be a hipster. I’ve always
enjoyed liking the things other people didn’t (in my youth, that was heavy
metal) and hating things everyone else loved (Duran Duran comes to mind).
Sardonic comments about life? Guilty.
I may
have missed the hipster bandwagon (I guess when it comes to iconoclasts I
prefer music’s earlier work) but I’m
glad I didn’t miss Dan Mangan. He may be too clever for his own good, but he
backs it up by being too good to be just clever.
“Nice,
Nice, Very Nice” is Mangan’s crowning achievement. His insightful lyrics make
you look around the everyday world, and let you know it is OK to appreciate the
small things. Stuck in traffic? Broken cell phone? Experience the moment, and let
Dan show you how these little things also have meaning.
Through
it all, this record never feels self-satisfied or smug like it could in lesser
hands. This is a record about feeling awkward and not being afraid to share the
experience. As he sings on “The Indie
Queens Are Waiting”:
“Are we cool now? Are we cool?
Bus down to the local record
store
Buy something to make you like me
more.”
Records?
Admissions of a lack of coolness? Hell, this song even has a direct reference to
‘Indie Queens’ in the title. Are you cool now, Dan? By today’s standards you
sure are, even though you can’t admit that you know it. Or maybe you can? The
self-deprecating honesty feedback loop on this record never really rests easy
on that question.
More
important than all this very timely norm-core coolness is the fact that Mangan
writes a beautiful pop song. “Nice, Nice, Very Nice” is full of melodies that
are compelling and yet unlike anything you’ll hear on the mainstream radio (or
so I imagine, being too cool for
mainstream radio, myself). His music has a nice mid-tempo swell throughout,
punctuated by flourishes of horns here and there that add just the right dash
of self-importance to let you know Mangan is kidding, at least a little.
The
worst part of music as far down the indie well as Dan Mangan is that it can
very easily become emotionless, but Mangan seems to be well aware of the
tightrope he is walking. He generally stays on the right side of that line. When
he crosses over the song becomes almost a musical apology for doing so. As he
sings on “Tina’s Glorious Comeback”:
“I’m ambitious when giving up.
Never thinking clear enough.
But we’re not Elvis anymore.
We’re not Frankie in his wild
years.
We’re not Tina’s glorious
comeback.
We’re not us.
We’re not us.”
On “Robots” he purports to be referencing broken
cell phones when he says “Robots need
love too/They want to be loved by you” but he could just as easily be
talking about all the Indie queens (and kings) with their detached observations
on life, poorly hiding their all-too frail and human hearts.
Incidentally,
I saw Mangan in concert (with the aforementioned Sherylyn and Joel) and he was
amazing, and deeply emotional. “Robots”
had the entire audience singing along with a fervor that showed just how deeply
affecting his lyrics can be when you take them into your heart.
On “Basket” you can feel Mangan’s appeal
back to sixties folk music, and the song could have easily been an early Simon
and Garfunkel track. When Mangan loses himself in his topic (as he does on “Basket” which is about coming to terms
with aging) he can be downright depressing, but in a way that chooses to be
thoughtful about tragedy, rather than wallow in it.
One
quibble about the CD packaging on this record is Mangan’s introductory
paragraph about what each song is about (that’s how a luddite like me know that
“Robots” was inspired by a cell
phone). I’d rather experience art on its own merits, without someone telling me
how to approach it first. The songs are easily good enough to speak for
themselves.
In the
end, I wanted slightly more emotional expression, but for the most part Mangan’s
exceptional songwriting skills, his gift for turning the ordinary into the
admirable and his hyper-honest self-examination made this album compelling on
the first listen, and the many I’ve had since.
Best
tracks: Road Regrets, Robots, The Indie Queens are
Waiting, Tina’s Glorious Comeback, Et Les Mots Croises, Basket
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