Artist: Thomas Jesso Jr.
Album: Goon
Bitrate: 216kbps avg
Quality: EAC Secure Mode / LAME 3.98.4 / -V0 / 44.100Khz
Label: True Panther Records
Genre: Pop
Size: 75.53 megs
PlayTime: 0h 46min 33sec total
Rip Date: 2015-03-13
Store Date: 2015-03-13
Track List:
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01. Can't Stop Thinking About You 3:53
02. How Could You Babe 3:52
03. Without You 5:09
04. Can We Still Be Friends 3:23
05. The Wait 2:14
06. Hollywood 6:08
07. For You 3:08
08. Crocodile Tears 2:22
09. Bad Words 4:28
10. Just A Dream 4:45
11. Leaving Los Angeles 4:24
12. Tell The Truth 2:47
Release Notes:
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If youÆve ever wandered by a practice room and overheard a child playing music
for the first time, you know what itÆs like to observe a physical and mental
transformation. Someone stretches their fingers awkwardly, fanning them across
the wide frets of a bass neck or straining their left pinkie to press that black
E-flat key. ThereÆs genuine apprehension, but their motivation pushes them
through. If youÆre lucky, catching someone in the act of learning exposes just
how people can propel themselves past the threat of failure, the barricades that
thwart us from doing almost anything new.
Singer-songwriter Tobias Jesso Jr. is fresh out of the practice room, but his
talent is much stronger than his CV implies. Goon, his debut album, is the
success story of a 29-year-old man beaten down by life only to be cheered on by
various collaborators. After failing to make it as a ghostwriter for pop acts in
Los Angeles, being struck by a Cadillac while biking, and discovering his mother
had cancer, Jesso left his instruments in storage and returned to his childhood
home in Vancouver. It was there that he sat down at his sisterÆs old piano, an
instrument he had never traced his fingers over. Naturally, he was slow at
first: stumbling and shuffling and painfully long pauses between chord changes.
He was his own student, trying to take in all 88 keys and the way his fingers
danced across them in their own dizzying ballet. Jesso isnÆt a piano prodigy.
His skills on the instrument are rudimentary at best. His openness toward
songwriting, however, is like that of a free-thinking child, a seemingly easy
attitude thatÆs harder to access with age. Jesso writes with fragility at the
forefront. The fact that he doesnÆt realize how pure his songwriting is makes it
that much better.
Goon begins with ôCanÆt Stop Thinking About Youö, whose chord progressions
recall a hit held close to the heart that you could never bring yourself to skip
on the radio. The lyrics reveal Jesso to be a hopeless romantic; Goon doesnÆt
shy away from cliches because JessoÆs ability to play them straight saves his
own words. On ôHow Could You Babeö, his emotional delivery of the chorus
compensates for lines about washing love down the drain and unrepairable pain.
Every Joe Cocker wail hits with brute force, giving the retro phrasing new life.
It would be easy to mistake Jesso for a æ70s singer-songwriter. Randy Newman and
Harry Nilsson comparisons become obvious on the jaunty ôFor Youö and the
alarming tale a father tells his newborn in the face of an apocalypse on ôJust a
Dreamö. Even the bedside guitar on ôThe Waitö recalls Nick Drake. Jesso has an
old heart, and the piano lures it out of him impeccably. Playful romp ôCrocodile
Tearsö sees him backed by a band for even older sounds, recalling The BeatlesÆ
ôMartha My Dearö and ôMaxwellÆs Silver Hammerö. Every tongue-in-cheek ôboo hooö
links hands with the staccato piano and prickly guitar solo for a perfect
recapturing of the ôHey Bulldogö spirit.
The producers sanding down JessoÆs sound emphasize that tenderness. GirlsÆ Chet
ôJRö White, The Black KeysÆ Patrick Carney, The New PornographersÆ John Collins,
and in vogue producer Ariel Rechtshaid helped coax Jesso into churning out
clear, crisp work. On ôHollywoodö, he bitterly remembers his failures in Los
Angeles. The vast silence between notes hangs heavy in what sounds like an empty
40,000-seat theater. Nearly two minutesÆ worth of melancholic horns graze the
edge of his piano like the striking gloom of an Allison Schulnik clip. The
production on JessoÆs material isnÆt glossy with studio tricks. ItÆs expanded to
include space, providing listeners with a vacant chamber that swallows them
whole. ThatÆs how Goon will make you cry: by reminding you how large your
emotions are compared to your vast mental isolation.
Jesso pulls off his debut immaculately because itÆs his retaliation against
rejection. Jesso failed writing pop in Los Angeles only to lock himself in that
practice room until his limping heart stood up a little straighter. ôWhy donÆt
you tell the truth sometime?/ You know you should,ö he sings on closer ôTell the
Truthö. In his voice is the strength of a man who has come to terms with the
path life placed him on. Backing orchestral parts appear shyly in the
background, appealing to Cassadega-like sorrow without the dramedy of Conor
Oberst; Jesso cushions his words in warmth.
For a man so concerned with embracing the now, Jesso mimics the past with ease.
Every artist from the wrong generation struggles to emulate the decade they hold
closest to their heart. ItÆs passion obstructed by passion, an idolized wanting
clouded by musical cataracts. TheyÆve been staring at their dream sound for so
long that every take in the studio is blindly overthought. Jesso is free of all
that. Goon vocalizes a timelessness through the mouth of a man playing simply to
start over, earnest as heÆll ever be ù and getting to hear it from inside the
practice room, not outside the door, makes all the difference.