Divisive panda is divisive…
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[6.17]
Anthony Miccio: To nail Diana Krall is this guy trying too?
[4]
Chuck Eddy: Guess I could take this as a ridiculous parody of… who? Scott Walker, Nick Drake, Leonard Cohen, Lee Hazlewood, one of those folks? Except it’s not funny enough, no matter how inside-out the title reads, and no matter how many rainy cliches the lyrics pack in. Also I’m pretty sure all of those guys would be above half-nicking a melody from “The Way We Were” (not necessarily an insult; it’s a timeless melody, after all).
[4]
Pete Baran: Since everyone else here is bound to have mentioned him, all I need to do is provide a score between Scott One and Scott…
[4]
Martin Skidmore: This sounds far too much like Neil Hannon trying to do a Scott Walker Brel number. This is not a good thing. I loved Scott, but Richard is nowhere near that calibre of singer, and the song rather lies there without any sweeping moments of drama.
[4]
Anthony Easton: Jaques Brel combined hard irony with soft sentiment, and was self loathing enough to mock his more gallic tendencies; Cocker and Hawley are like these two sides of Brel, split — so Cocker got the dark irony, and Hawley got the sweet and tender stuff. It seems like a bad trade — there is nothing to temper the schmaltz of piano and strings, but unprocessed emotion, raw and sentimental and sweet, and wet, has this ability to feel instead of think… this is obv. not “Moon River”, but it has a similar effect.
[8]
Matt Cibula: I know Jacques Brel, and you, sir, are no Jacques Brel. Good god, isn’t life miserable enough?
[2]
Hillary Brown: Look, it’s about an hour and a half long and incredibly corny, but I cannot resist the smoky honey tones of Richard Hawley. There is an amazing and romantic sweetness to nearly everything he’s done lately. Somehow he sounds 20 years older than he is. We kind of needed a new Bacharach anyway.
[6]
Edward Okulicz: Doesn’t haunt like his best work; the words are flat and unevocative and the tune derivative, but I still can listen to that voice doing lesser material all day, as long as it’s not one of his ill-advised rockabilly pastiches. Quaint, in an above-average way.
[7]
Martin Kavka: I fell deeply and passionately in love with Richard Hawley in 2007, after reviewing “Tonight The Streets Are Ours” for the previous incarnation of the Jukebox. This is a far more morose affair than that single; drums and bass are nowhere to be found. The lyric offers a finely tuned portrait of a relationship that has lost its energy over time, despite the real love that the people involved had (have?) for each other. It conjures up an entire world more readily than most of what passes for poetry these days, and the sparseness of the acoustic guitar combined with the warmth of the string quartet is its perfect vehicle. Best of all, the beautiful timbre of Hawley’s deep growl has gained even more power from his increased skill at phrasing. A classic song from a classic singer.
[10]
Doug Robertson: Like a perfectly aged malt whisky, this is a song to be savoured. Over a deceptively simple melody, Hawley’s voice wafts out of the speakers and wraps itself around you like a smokey blanket, comforting and killing simultaneously, conjuring up images of back street crooning and yearning desires. This song exists out of time, but it’s all the better for it. A mournfully stunning piece of work; forget life in the fast lane, sometimes it’s better to stand in the gutter, watching the cars pass by in black and white.
[10]
John Seroff: Sleepy 60s AM radio End of the Affair elegy that sounds uncannily like the credit crawl for a Dario Argento film. It’s a remarkably effective crystallization of a specific and righteous mood, after the breakup but before the depression. I can’t remember the last song I heard that was so even and still. All in all, a nice piece of stuntwork.
[7]
Alfred Soto: This flirts with kitsch so shamefacedly that I kept waiting for him to make his move — and he doesn’t. Although formal and rather too conscious of being Serious Songwriting respected by Elvis Costello and Nick Cave, this lovingly mixed recording evokes Leonard Cohen’s romantic side, even if Hawley’s vocal elides the old man’s prurient side. How many of you thought the birthday gift in the opening couplet would have made Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg proud?
[8]