No matter how deceptively delicate and contemplative the music of Christian Lee Hutson may be, there seems to be a competitive spirit hovering overhead. Relationships, regardless of how entangled within them he is, provide an insight into the dynamic held within each song. Someone has to win, someone has to lose. You can see this even in a propulsive song like the stunning “State Bird,” where the argumentative relationship he’s unpacking makes it clear the side we’re hearing is from the loser. It’s a viewpoint that only makes sense considering his last two albums were entitled Beginners and Quitters, every character is playing a game of sorts. On “Flamingos,” a standout from his new album Paradise Pop. 10, Hutson makes this tumultuous subtext into enthralling text. He sings: “Losers remember the people who won / Winners are never afraid to lose / You only think about falling in love / I only think about you,” as the album’s co-producer Phoebe Bridgers sings a cradling harmony.
It stands to reason that Hutson writes from the losing side more often than not. Paradise Pop. 10 is rife with brief but affecting narrative sketches of relationship aftermaths and offers trenchant insights into the beautiful wreckage. On “Tiger,” the album’s opener, we get a look into the thoughts of a man so riddled with insecurities that he’s reticent to try and work on the issues in his relationship. He watches his girlfriend act in a play, projecting himself onto her scene partner as her character ends an on-stage relationship. He daydreams about how things could have gone but ultimately applauds himself for saving himself from further hurt. The music, steady piano plinks coming undone, and a canned applause fill the space as Hutson sings a withering, condescending note of encouragement: “Go get ‘em, tiger.” “Tiger” has its inverse in the folk rock-inflected “Candyland.” Here, our narrator reacts skeptically when an ex tries to rekindle things. He likens their relationship to a carnival game on a Jersey boardwalk, trying over and over to win.
Paradise Pop. 10 often retreads narrative ground already covered by Hutson on prior records. This would be a bigger issue if these new songs weren’t even more enticing than the last. One could look at the vapory “After Hours” as another perspective of the car crash in “Northsiders.” It’s as though the free spirit Hutson sings about is addressing his narrator from the afterlife. They look down and sing “It’s crazy, I know / I’ve got nowhere to go / But up here, I wear my seatbelt.” Home to lines like “You looked like After Hours era Catherine O’Hara” and “Embarrassed in Paris to fuck on the terrace,” it’s one of the most memorable songs among the set and presents an otherworldly dreamstate I could listen to Hutson describing forever.
The rollicking “Carousel Horses” is an alternate-universe “Age Difference,” another song about an uneven relationship in age and power differential. Dipping his toes into the reverby torrent of shoegaze, Hutson and Maya Hawke deliver the scorned lovers barbs with something approximating a gang vocal—“You say you tried everything / Holding back, leaning in / And all of it hurts / Nothing changes, nothing works.” It doesn’t matter if the characters here are the same or just separate people experiencing the same thing. As Hutson sings in the closer, “Beauty School:” “In a mirror universe, time is moving in reverse.” There are endless characters falling into endless roles. That’s one of the more interesting facets of Hutson’s writing style, how no one is disposable but no one is precious either.
Hutson’s albums play out like a series of vignettes set to sedate indie rock, and while from song to song Paradise Pop. 10 is impressively written, there comes a point somewhere in the middle where things begin to blend into a flowery soup. It’s not until “After Hours,” with its unique, distancing vocal effects, that things begin to pick up again. None of these songs are particularly weak, but their sequencing makes the album, so heavy with emotional weight to begin with, start to drag. Another song with enough sheer power and energy as “Carousel Horses” would do well to break up the monotony. It’s a sequence familiar to fans of Bridgers; one or two upbeat moments amid a calmer sea. In the case of Bridgers, though, the same sins are more permissible by their magnetism. Christian Lee Hutson’s voice is surely pleasant, but not a once in a generation, inimitable instrument of someone like Bridgers.
It’s notable that, in contrast with Beginners and Quitters, Paradise Pop. 10 feels a bit lower in energy and lower in stakes. There’s a quiet loneliness to these tracks that’s reflected in their arrangements, as it’s an album best summed up by its penultimate track, “Skeleton Crew”—with its images of cast aside champagne glasses and glove box whiskey. It’s all about looking at the aftermath of intense feelings, whether they’re laid bare and broken on the lawn, or clandestine, no longer palatable from being stashed away in a sunbaked car.
Read our recent feature on Christian Lee Hutson here.
Eric Bennett is a music critic in Philadelphia with bylines at Pitchfork, Post-Trash and The Alternative. They are also a co-host of Endless Scroll, a weekly podcast covering the intersection of music and internet culture. You can follow them on Twitter @violet_by_hole.
