“Do you check into a hotel? Or does the hotel condition check into you?” writes Wayne Koestenbaum in Hotel Theory, a collection positioning the hotel room as a space for possibility. Consider it a companion piece to Jarvis Cocker and Chilly Gonzales’ Room 29, a meditation on the relationship between hotel and guest, comprised of piano, voice, bits of strings from the Kaiser Quartett, and sound effects. Of course, these seemingly blank slates still hold memories and emotions, and that’s where this collaboration gets interesting. Sorting through metaphorical traces left behind, Cocker asks on the title track, “Is there anything sadder than a hotel room that hasn't been fucked in?”
Some of the real-life stories from the Chateau Marmont, the infamous Los Angeles hotel where this room 29 is located (with a grand piano, no less), are indeed quite sad. In one of *Room 29’*s several tabloid tales, Cocker speak-sings of dear “Clara,” the pianist daughter of Mark Twain, who attempted to rouse the spirit of her dead husband at the Chateau. Memories of old Hollywood types haunt the record just as they do the hotel, like the only slightly veiled allusion to Jean Harlow in Bombshell. If one wishes to know all the references, the immediate concordance machine that is the internet will provide all the easter eggs for interested listeners.
For as mysterious a backdrop the Chateau can be, what’s more intriguing here is how Cocker’s lyrics edge into analytical territory while trying to figure out what it is, exactly, that people do in hotel rooms. Do they figure out relationships? Pretend like everything is okay? Perhaps take comfort in the free breakfast anyway? Lope about the lobby in a state of surreal emptiness while listening to cinematic numbers like “A Trick of the Light”? The music and the tone of voice seem to suggest this melancholy state. But combined with often laugh-out-loud funny lyrics—“You don’t need a girlfriend, you need a social worker,” Cocker quips on “Tearjerker”—the clanging rhymes can end up somewhere near a gaudy Tin Pan Alley standard.
It’s no surprise that this album (if you can call it that) will be performed at the Barbican in London, given that it’s all about bringing listeners into the room. But as much as this is supposed to be an experimental and theatrical tour of Room 29, both Cocker and Gonzales have way too much pop-song mastery for this to be just a fussy one-time stay. Cocker brings his wry Pulp persona to bear on Gonzales’ elegant piano and film-score approach and deep pop tune understanding. A few tracks are infectious enough to merit standalone listens.
