Jeremy Fisher – Goodbye, Blue Monday
Jeremy Fisher – Goodbye, Blue Monday
I’m sitting here listening to the second full album by press-kit-described “post-millennial troubadour” and You Tube phenomenon (whatever that means) Jeremy Fisher. It’s called Goodbye, Blue Monday, and the innocuous, non-threatening nature of the title carries through to the album. We’ll dispense with the website bio quoting now, as it will only provoke your reviewer to a more scathing account than this record merits.
Some friends and I have been debating Tom Petty lately, the bone of contention being whether his best songs are still too bland and non-threatening to warrant his superstar career. What makes this something other than a non-sequitur is that we face the same debate here. Jeremy Fisher’s songs are solid, occasionally hooky, verse-chorus-verse-middle-eight-chorus-out folk-pop. Folk because he plays an acoustic gee-tar and furnishes his tunes with tasteful washes of harmonica, mandolin and whatever other indigenous instruments John Cougar Mellencamp used on The Lonesome Jubilee, a record which I suspect lies somewhere in young Fisher’s matrix of influences. Rock because they gave him a band to front. As bands go, they all sound competent, though that is a harder sensibility to define in an age where people who cannot sing and cannot play can be made to sound at least that. Call the playing well-rehearsed. Now back to the dilemma.
Obviously Fisher is no star, yet, despite having a cheap video go viral on the online answer to America’s Funniest Videos. If this record was meant to catapult him into Tila Tequila-and-beyond-basic-cable stardom, well, maybe he should’ve had some boring, bisexual pin-up wannabe sing in the videos. The combination of porn-lite visuals and Fisher’s bright, optimistic, happy-shiny, safe-as-abstinence ditties might distract any potential audience from noticing the music is boring and, frankly, dick-less.
He’s Simon without Garfunkel; he’s Elliott Smith without the sexy heroin-suicide thing. He’s a little bit Dylan; he’s a little bit Neil Young. (Minus Crazyhorse.) He’s Brian Wilson, that dreaded post-indie name check, without the surfer-boy yearning. He’s all the classic pop and light-rock virtues rolled and pressed into as friendly and non-threatening a CD as I may ever hear.
He does best when he goes up-tempo and extra-sunny. Songs such as “High School” and “Cigarette” and the not-at-all-uncomfortably-reminiscent “American Girls,” Fisher (or Teagan&Sara producer Hawksley Workman, also twiddling knobs here) achieves close to a perfect melding of West Coast mid-’60s, Beach Boys/Mamas&Papas AM friendly lushness and The Byrds’ slightly less wholesome jangle.
Problem is, even Fisher’s best, most melodic/anthemic tunes sound bereft of sex, of urgency. Of whatever extra conviction and passion Fisher’s rather too obvious influences brought to their music that makes it classic. His best material suggests awesome covers potential. And that’s not really a good thing.
I’m gonna turn this disc off, now. And you may, after a listen or two, as well. Question is: Will either of us turn it on again later?
I say no.
