Artist: Rich McCulley
Album: The Grand Design
Bitrate: 254kbps avg
Quality: EAC Secure Mode / LAME 3.98.4 / -V0 / 44.100Khz
Label: RMC
Genre: Rock
Size: 80.42 megs
PlayTime: 0h 41min 57sec total
Rip Date: 2013-05-25
Store Date: 2013-03-19
Track List:
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01. Right Here Now 3:14
02. The Most Beautiful Thing 3:20
03. Let You Go 4:01
04. Troubles Behind 3:22
05. The Grand Design 3:27
06. Just Begun to Run 4:32
07. The Gift 3:11
08. Promises 2:59
09. Don't Know What to Do 2:27
10. She's Like a Tattoo 3:40
11. Coldwater Rain 3:43
12. A Little Bit Broken 4:01
Release Notes:
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This album reminds me of so many good things about music. This is, simply put,
clean, melodic, extremely well written and performed pop music with a sharp
rootsy edge. It reminds me of times when The Replacements, The Connells, The Old
97's and The Rave-Ups ruled my world. Truth be told I haven't heard anything
this cool in quite a while...maybe since Mad Buffalo, last spring.
Rich McCulley has been around for a while, "The Grand Design" being his sixth
solo effort. "The Grand Design" is by far the most impressive out of six
impressive relases, showing great strides in songwriting and production.
McCulley assembled the "L.A. Roots Hall of Fame" list of performers on this one,
sparing few notables and including Taras Prodaniuk, Greg Boaz, Steve Mugalian,
DJ Bonebreak, Brian Young among others. If you aren't sure, Google those names,
they're the real deal. McCulley is a phenomenal player in his own right and can
add to his credits, a damn fine producer.
The 12 original songs on "The Grand Design" ebb and flow like life itself.
McCulley looks at the world through optimistic eyes and even when the situation
is dark, McCulley writes plenty of natural light into the songs.
Standouts include "The Most Beautiful Thing" co-written by Todd Herfendal and
Will Kimbrough. The most beautiful woman in the world passes you on the street
and for that one brief rich mcculley in the alternate rootmoment, well, she is
actually in your life. The she keeps walking. She's out of your life. No doubt a
familiar story but much better when told over Beach Boys-like harmonies and
guitars reminiscent of George Harrison.
The album's title track is an existential journey to the place where you come to
peace with your own personal blip on the screen of life. There's been some
hardship in recent years for Rich McCulley and "The Grand Design" is McCulley's
way of exhaling and inhaling simultaneously. It's like that throughout this
grand book of melodic poetry.
On "Coldwater Rain," McCulley finds and acknowledges "the one." That one we all
hope to find. That one that changes our very being, peeling back the layers that
expose who we truly are. That's not always a happy place but in Rich McCulley's
world, this is a tip of the cap to his true love.
"...before you I was a child,
in a grown up world.
Then you showed me how to let my love unfurl.
...We can ride if you want to,
wherever you want to go.
We can roll, I will take you,
we can even take it slow."
McCulley is obviously an artist who's boots have seen the boards, the road and
the gas pedal and his documentation of the journey and the destination is a
moment to savor. Like a good movie you watch over again to see what you missed,
this album reveals new and interesting twists with each listen. The playing and
the production are so damn good you miss the lyrics at times.
"The Grand Design" is one of those albums that moves from work to pleasure for
me. I hear hundreds of albums every month and write about many of them strictly
from a professional point of view. Doubtful I will listen to many of them from a
perspective that strays from that. Not this one, this one moves to the personal
collection for pleasure and personal time...there with The Replacements, The
Connells, The Del-Lords and The Old 97's. This album is all about the pleasure
of music.
s, The Del-Lords and The Old 97's. This album is all about the pleasure
of music.