Dean Wareham has always presented himself as a music fan as much as a musician, the sort of artist for whom it’s not uncommon to devote at least 20% of an album to cover songs. But whether he was reinterpreting George Harrison with Galaxie 500 or Guns 'N Roses with Luna, it never felt like Wareham was just showing off his record collection for the sake of it, or worse, being ironic. Rather, he was asserting his platonic ideal of pop music, separating iconic artists from their historical baggage, and distilling the songs down to the intimate, personal connection and details that made him an enthusiast in the first place. It’s an approach that went into overdrive with Dean & Britta, Wareham’s mid-2000s collaboration with ex-Luna-bassist-turned-wife Britta Phillips; the couple’s covers-stacked releases captured the sound of newlyweds rolling around on the living-room floor amid piles of their favorite 45s during a red wine-fueled all-nighter. But, naturally, every nocturnal reverie must be followed by a moment when you have to face the day again.
It’s tempting to read into the fact that, following that seemingly successful musical and matrimonial partnership, Wareham is now releasing records under his own name for the first time in his nearly three-decade career. While Phillips is still in the picture, she’s reverted from star-player status to a background role amid Wareham’s mise en scene. Her presence as a muse, however, is as powerful as ever: Like last year’s Emancipated Hearts EP, Wareham’s new self-titled full-length is less Dean & Britta than Dean to Britta. It’s an album that humorously but honestly explores the tensions that arise in any long-term relationship, however in this case, the pressures—financial, political, or otherwise—seem to be coming more from without than within. “I’m living in a holding pattern,” Wareham confesses on the album’s deceptively sprightly centerpiece “Holding Pattern”, but it’s not the proverbial seven-year itch that’s nagging at him so much as the humdrum, 9-to-5 uniformity of modern American life, where even in an era of “drop-down menus,” it can be hard to distinguish sports-ticker reports from the 1970s arena-rock dinosaurs still clogging up the FM airwaves (“Kansas, Boston, Toto, Journey, Foreigner, and Styx/ San Diego over Denver 17 to 6”).
In the face of such demoralizing conditions, it can be hard to keep one’s spirits up even in a happy coupling, but the standout tracks here suggest that, while it may be unsentimental to think of relationship as work, it’s the sort of labor that yields rewards: “We’ll love you in the lean times,” Wareham assures on “My Eyes Are Blue”, a song whose title evokes a classic track by his beloved Velvet Underground, but whose winsome jangle sounds more like the sort of early-60s pop confections Lou Reed would’ve cranked out in his pre-VU song-factory stint. And as Wareham observes, in a world dominated by “Heartless People”, romanticism becomes akin to radicalism—when he sings, “You and I/ Hate to see a flower die,” it’s less an expression of twee-as-fuck sensitivity than a defiant assertion of one’s humanity even as the bastards try to get you down.
Once again, Wareham’s turned to his record collection for emotional guidance, though instead of simply covering some of his favorite artists, he’s taken to enlisting younger contemporaries as collaborators. On Emancipated Hearts, he ceded the console to Jason Quever, aka Sub Pop indie-pop savant Papercuts, and for this more sonically elaborate recording, he's given himself over to My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, a relationship that dates back to Wareham’s obsession with MMJ’s 1999 debut, The Tennessee Fire. Though James’ aesthetic has obviously evolved greatly from the rustic simplicity of that album, his name is still synonymous with a certain strain of cosmic Americana, and the sparkling, synth-washed productions of “Beat the Devil” and “Love Is Not a Roof Against the Rain” balance the retro and futurist in a fashion reminiscent of post-Deserter’s Songs Mercury Rev, providing Wareham with the cocoon-like insulation from the outside world he seeks.
But, perhaps owing to Wareham’s recent acts of self-reflection—penning an autobiography, dusting off Galaxie 500 standards in concert—this album functions firmly within the various comfort zones he's inhabited over the years, spanning the dreamy drone of his first band (see: “Babes in the Woods”, featuring a rare showing of Wareham’s long-dormant falsetto) to the sort of electronic-inflected pop he toyed with in Dean & Britta. Given the dichotomy between Wareham’s dry, plainspoken demeanor and James’ shoot-for-the-stratosphere tendencies, this album is an epic of modest proportions, a Pocketbook Dean Wareham to go with your Portable Galaxie 500. In more calculated hands, the pulsating groove of the closing “Happy & Free” could be elevated into a “With Or Without You”-sized anthem, but Wareham is content to just calmly ride it out at his patient pace, and enjoy the moment of peace—because he knows it won’t last. He may claim he’s “happy and free,” but he adds, with typically understated sardonicism, “for a while.” And, as ever, the least his songs can do is make those short whiles feel like they could last forever.
