In their respective careers, singer-songwriter Joan Wasser (AKA Joan as Police Woman) and multi-instrumentalist Benjamin Lazar Davis have both flirted with pop accessibility while also keeping their distance. Of the two, Wasser has hewed closer to traditional pop forms, while Davis has taken a more academic approach with the chamber pop outfit Cuddle Magic. But on their first collaboration Let It Be You, Wasser and Davis indulge themselves, revealing a shared sweet tooth for bubblegum bombast that will likely shock each of their fanbases.
Aside from her work with Anohni, Rufus Wainwright, and Lou Reed, Wasser’s solo output repeatedly demonstrates her natural affinity for songcraft. In particular, she’s shown a knack for borrowing from mainstream pop music in a way that preserves its dignity. Her heavily soul-inflected work, arty as it may be, reminds us of a time when pop tunes wound up in jazz clubs without losing anything in translation. Unlike so many of her peers, Wasser never comes off like she's slumming, instead working deftly at the porous border between whatever separates “highbrow” and “popular” art.
Meanwhile, Davis—who has a much more playful, high-energy presence—brings an explosive spark to the material. Where Wasser's bittersweet chords on piano and guitar reflect the full, often messy range of everyday feelings, Davis tends to lean towards more childlike expressions. One would expect these differences to create fertile ground on an album that addresses relationships so much. But the pair undercuts the human element of the music by play-acting at singing big and bold for the people way up in the cheap seats.
On the aptly named “Overloaded,” the chorus scrapes the adult-contempo stratosphere by mimicking the familiar production style of huge-budget R&B-inflected pop music. Here and elsewhere, Davis and Wasser play off of one another, egging each other on to dial up the schmaltz and clearly having fun in the process. They sound positively giddy, but the results almost completely sideline the moodiness that drives the spirit of both Cuddle Magic and Joan As Policewoman.
Case in point: the Let It Be You version of “Overloaded” oozes with outsized melodrama—you’d believe it if someone told you it had been written with Katy Perry in mind. Cuddle Magic’s rendition, on the other hand, hits more subtle notes by enticing you to read between the lines. On Let It Be You, the song becomes somewhat faceless, one of several love songs that wear heartbreak like a neon-colored stage costume. And generic turns of phrase like “It hurts so bad how much I love you/Makes me wanna die when I'm thinkin’ of you” (from “Hurts So Bad”) make it hard to tell whether Wasser and Davis are mocking or celebrating the pop vocabulary they’re employing.
Sonically speaking, Let It Be You is undeniably rich, and there are moments where Wasser and Davis weave around each other like seasoned dance partners. The title track, for example, starts with a bit-crushed melody line and handclap samples that reference the Central African Republic Pygmy rhythms that initially brought the pair together. At first, Wasser faux-rhymes in a flat-pitched, finger-wagging tone like she's doing her best Luscious Jackson impersonation. But when she and Davis harmonize together on the chorus, the song soars to a more sublime place—where most of this album should aim.
Let It Be You shows what it could have been on the final track, the ultra-solemn “Station,” which starts with Wasser singing accompanied only by watery electric guitar for several verses. The funereal vibe is so jarring—and convincingly heartrending—that at first it sounds as if a Joan As Policewoman tune ended up on the wrong record. Perhaps “Station” would have been better served set aside for one of Wasser’s own albums. Here, it feels like a glimpse of foregone possibility on a lower-stakes project, the sound of two pros blowing off steam by proving they can recreate Top 40 spectacle. It might be a good time, but good times aren’t what got Joan Wasser and Benjamin Lazar Davis where they are.
