There are some bands I just can't listen to on Sundays. Sonic Youth, Archers of Loaf, Brainiac, Girls Against Boys, and Neil Young (electric) are a few that come to mind. Then there are the artists I'm ten times more likely to play on Sunday than on any other day, like Brian Eno, Duke Ellington, Otis Redding, Yo La Tengo and Neil Young (acoustic). Great artists, of course, are great seven days a week (or, in the Beatles' case, eight days a week). And furthermore, in the right circumstances, I'll play these artists on any day of the week.
Although perhaps not as exceptional as any of those mentioned above, the Jayhawks have always been my quintessential Sunday band-- their music always sounds particularly poignant or affecting on the Day of Rest. And this album, Smile, starts off like it could be their most Sunday album to date. It opens with an acoustic strum, a decremental piano bar, another acoustic strum, and again, a decremental piano, this time mimicked by an electric guitar in the background. "Wake up/ Put your shoes on," sings frontman Gary Louris. "Take a breath of the northern air/ And rub those eyes."
Louris' voice is so inviting that I oblige: I'm up, out of bed, shoes on. Now what? Well, I still need to find an apartment and a part-time job in the self- proclaimed greatest city on earth. No more than two weeks have passed and I'm already beaten down, dejected, and suffering from metropolitan loneliness and isolation, Charles Baudelaire-style. "Chin up, chin up," chime Louris and Karen Grotberg. "You don't really have a problem." And goddamn, they're right.
These rock stars-- they're so smart. So why the hideous distorted guitar jabs and unnecessary orchestration in the middle of the opening title track? It's the hand of grandiose producer Bob Ezrin-- the man behind the boards of Pink Floyd's The Wall, Kiss' Destroyer, and, of course, Kiss' Music from "The Elder"-- whose flourishes spoil many of this record's perfectly fine moments. For instance, during the following track, "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me," the Jayhawks are indulging in their trademark style of ruralternative when (presumably) Ezrin douses Louris' voice in reverb during the bridge. In doing so, he pulls the music out of the barroom and artificially implants it into a bad sci-fi novel.
But the first true experimentation comes on the third track, "What Led Me to This Town." It begins with isolated acoustic chords and Louris' gentle tenor. But it's suddenly interrupted by mechanized drumbeats, accompanied by subtle, but very noticeable, Pole-like static blips. If hardcore Mark Olson-era Jayhawks' fans felt betrayed by the dark pop of 1997's Sound of Lies, they'll be downright vigilant after hearing Smile.
A handful of other songs rely on looped beats that are, in some cases, sped up to the point where they approach hip-hop ("Somewhere in Ohio") or even drum- n-bass ("(In My) Wildest Drums"). There are also moments of arena rock, and even arena-rock balladry, like the frighteningly Journey-esque "Pretty Thing," on which Marc Perlman takes mic for a humble Jeff Tweedy impersonation. But Smile contains its share of front-porch songs, featuring the backing vocals of Grotberg. And even when showcasing greater musical ambition, their sound somehow remains essentially the same as it was three years ago.
The biggest change, however, is that Smile is the thematic antithesis of Sound of Lies. Whereas the latter focused on the pain of broken relationships, this album is a much happier affair. And if there's one thing you can't fault the Louris-era Jayhawks for, it's aptly titling their albums. That's why Smile is more of a, say, Saturday afternoon album. I want my Sunday albums consistent, predictable, and preferably gloomy, reflective or sedate. I don't want Louris telling me to smile; I want him singing, "My whole life has gone haywire," as he did on Sound of Lies.
But I can't fault Louris for being happy or traveling new musical territory. Although not nearly the Smile Brian Wilson once created while slowly snapping, nor even as artistically successful as Wilco's genre break-out Summer Teeth, this is one of the finer, genuinely happy albums of the year. And maybe this is exactly what I need right now, whether it's Sunday or not.
