Brendan Benson: My Old Familiar Friend (ATO, 2009)
I hope it’s time for Brendan Benson to step into the spotlight. I don’t have anything against The Raconteurs. In fact, I really like them. But while I like The Raconteurs, I absolutely love Brendan Benson as a solo artist. Therefore for me the most important thing about The Raconteurs has been the fact that it just might make the name Brendan Benson better known and people will start to notice what a great songwriter he is. This is already his fourth album and all of them are near-perfect pop albums (obviously because I’m a typical indie boy, I think the first one is the best, but I do love them all). My Old, Familiar Friend is again a hit record. It should be a hit record. In my dreams this kind of albums are the ones that would top the charts. Even in my dreams I’m not high enough to realistically dream about my beloved small power pop groups suddenly hitting the charts, but albums like this seem to have all the needed ingredients in my fantasy land. It sounds damn good, it’s catchy as hell, it’s radio friendly, it’s beautifully crafted, melodic and simple pop music and Brendan is a pretty boy as well. .There shouldn’t be anything stopping him from getting a worldwide success.. While waiting for the day when I wake up into a world where Metarie ringtones and Alternative To Love t-shirts surround me in the crowds, I can listen to this strong pop album. The opener A Whole Lot Better is one of the songs of the year and the quality of the music remains almost equally high throughout the record. My Old, Familiar Friend is again a real pop gem.
Brendan Benson at myspace
(yeah, I do know that this so called “review” didn’t really describe the album, but as you might have noticed in the past and will notice in the future that I’m no real reviewer. Just a little pop fan who after a long break again started to write about the music he loves eventhough he doesn’t generally know much about music. I still don’t know whether I’m going to keep on doing these regularly. I might quit any day, but as long as I enjoy writing them.. why not).