Should Have Told You Sometimes
Joel Alme: “A Master Of Ceremonies” (Sincerely Yours)
This year, no other album has this one beat in the beauty department. How to describe this record without seeming ungrateful? Hmm… It’s the sound of “Self Portrait” by Bob Dylan, if it was only that crazy performance of “The Mighty Quinn” with a slightly different feel and different set of lyrics each time. Oh, and produced by someone with acute Phil Spector leanings. Throw that on top of there. And a cute Swedish guy who has just the most unusual accent. It’s certainly quite resplendent in a way that Sweden has had on lockdown for the past three or four years, apparently. It’s obvious that the boys in the Tough Alliance (who are getting such deserved recognition that it would be a moot point to jaw about them) know how to pick ‘em and stick ‘em. It would be unfair to compare Joel to Jens Lekman, even though it’s a similar product. But where Jens has Joel most certainly beat in charm and compelling lyrics, Joel has a rounder, grander, sadder style of music and there’s something nice and janky about that.
Oh and he looks like this:
Where Jens would rather push the envelope and wow you with his sleight of hand and inventive production techniques, Joel is out to make you cry and drop your drawers. It’s everything that American Idol should learn from, in the hugest way. Be a lovelorn puppet and win! If I had my way and my own radio station, I would play most of these songs, particularly “A Young Summer’s Youth”, alongside Pussycat Dolls and T.I. If you ask me, radio segregation is a very real and viable thing, and at the very least, “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk” by Trace Adkins might be the worst song in the entire world, in the history of recorded music.. but at least it’s relatively free from a lot of “Us vs. Them”s that plague the pop strata. Basically, it’s a message that is saying, “Everyone loves a big ass, now shut the fuck up and drink, idiot.” So, clearly, there’s no room for social improvement in a song like that, even if it is crossing boundaries or whatever. People would benefit from hearing this shit on the radio, is all I’m saying.
