Warm, mellow, melancholy sounds rarely hit it off with the kids on the street with the exception of things like Bossa, and even then their interest rarely extends beyond the dreamy kitsch samba of Getz and Gilberto’s ‘Girl From Ipanema’. For British tastes at least, anything that so much threatens to level off those unruly mid-to-high frequencies, gets consigned to the AOR bin. And just to prove it, let’s time travel back to 1977 and ask spotty, spikey-haired teenager, Henri Rollins whether its the frightfully well polished, ‘Rumours’ or ‘Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols’ that he gets his kicks from. You see my point? Well my point is not as sound as it looks as both albums went on to shift a very freaky amount of units – and therein lies the rub: whilst the greater part of the record buying and record pontificating population wears its anarchy on its sleeve, its heart is often reserved for the likes of Howie Beck who does for the prickly barbs of the cutting edge what your mother’s fabric softener does to your jeans: he makes listening a comfortable experience.
Of course, ‘comfortable’ is not always ‘cool’ as similar slipper-core artists like Ed Harcourt found to his cost, but what both fellows lack in the way of the unpredictable and the shocking they more than make up for with choons, whether it’s the breezy, ticklish daydreams kicked-up by songs like ‘Save Me’ or the swooning romance of the cheerfully broken-hearted, ‘Beside This Life’ (featuring fellow Canadian, Sarah Harmer on breathy, grief-stricken sighs).
It’s a tough sell admittedly. Beck has had three albums out already – all made in his bedroom – and all heroically failing to trouble the UK charts. And whilst he’s finally made it out of the bedroom into a big proper studio in Paris, the results is as tangibly introspective and self-managing as anything he’s released so far. He not only writes the songs that make the whole world sing (or at least the corduroy/sweater wearing part of it), he also plays, produces and arranges them all too, and whilst that may be ultimately to his credit, it can fall victim to inevitable smugness on occasion.
Q said Howie Beck ‘almost made misery a cool condition’. Like they said: almost.