Think of niche-songwriting as a delicate system of checks and balances, a constant scuffle to avoid pesky, ever-constricting labels: Maybe more so than any other sonic subculture, floppy-haired, pink-faced singer/songwriters have an odd tendency to eschew "sensitive" pigeonholing by employing jerky beats and wobbly loops, threading in synth lines to counteract their earnest acoustic strums. Thus, the emergence of a formula: Temper organics by sneaking in squeaky electronic bits, each earthy, misty-eyed component carefully offset by its cold, shiny opposite.
Australian press-prodigy Ben Lee's last full-length, 1998's Breathing Tornadoes, saw him pushing the same kind of disappointingly benign electro-folk aesthetic: precious warbling layered over limp, tittering beats, an endless expanse of flaccid, noncommittal elevator-pop without the hooks or ingenuity to endure. Nearly six years have passed since that album's release (Lee's label, the Beastie Boy-owned Grand Royal, has since collapsed), and while Lee has since roped in an impressive collaborator-- shockingly, Hey You was produced by Dan the Automator-- and spent plenty of time weaseling around with fellow pop-rockers Ben Kweller, Ben Folds, and Evan Dando, his artistic agenda hasn't shifted in any significant way.
If anything, Hey You, Yes You is remarkable for its blankness; the record putters along, dopily paced and packed with glib, yawning one-liners ("It's not my fault/ Your love's like salt"), politely trotting itself into the ground. While not quite as self-consciously electro-drenched as Breathing Tornadoes, Hey You has more than enough instantly forgettable lite-rock quasi-noodling to compensate for its lost beats.
While Lee never quite grew into the brilliance his chattering critics predicted, his earlier releases nonetheless showcased an ability to pen inescapable pop hooks, which was vaguely remarkable, given his age: At 14, Lee, then fronting childhood band Noise Addict, was stacking up massive piles of next-big-thing press clippings, unilaterally lauded for his songwriting prowess and championed by cred-heavy U.S. artists like Thurston Moore (who released Noise Addict's demo as an EP, on his Ecstatic Peace label) and Mike D. (who later signed Lee to Grand Royal). Hey You, Yes You reveals little of young Lee's fervor, and even less of his energy: Opener "Running with Scissors" is as clichéd as its title: A goofy guitar riff and Lee's high warbles coalesce into a perfectly generic whole, while the synthesized percussion keeping time beneath sounds plucked from the pre-programmed beatbank of a cheap Casio.
"Dirty Mind" features the keyboard stylings of Phantom Planet's Jason Schwartzman (who also co-wrote "Chills", a sappy trip-hop lament that boasts the face-souring/mind-blowing chorus, "You give me chills") and is, regrettably, Hey You's most instantly palatable track, a bouncy, vocals-heavy bit of blippy folk-rock. "Music 4 the Young and Foolish" (chorus: "'Cause this is music/ 4 the young and foolish") seems unintentionally dated with its clunky, oddly arrhythmic disco swells. "No Room to Bleed" is almost embarrassingly overwrought, its plaintive piano melody periodically interrupted by bursts of drum machine, and Lee's mournful coos landing like the yelps of a less smirky Ben Folds. By now, the straightforward folk-ballad "Shine" feels gloriously, refreshingly honest.
It's possible that Ben Lee's been perpetually distracted by his numerous side projects, or simply gotten too comfortable with steady mediocrity. Either way, Hey You, Yes You is a wincingly ordinary experiment in wincingly ordinary songwriting. Folk-beat formula can, occasionally, yield brilliant (or at least interesting) results, building unexpectedly prickly tensions-- or, it can allow, as it does here, for a record that sounds stifled, contrived, and unbearably trite.
