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| From | plattc@optonline.net |
| Subject | Michael Penn News |
| Date | Wed, 24 Jan 2007 18:38:53 +0000 (GMT) |
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Here's some welcome Michael Penn news. Mr. Hollywood Jr. 1947, his latest, is being rereleased by Sony and paired with a retrospective CD of rerecorded and/or remastered tunes. What follows is the track listing and an essay which will be included in the liner notes.
Here's hoping it does well for him!
Palms And Runes, Tarot and Tea: A Michael Penn Collection
Lucky One (Version One) (Previously Unreleased)
Bunker Hill (New Version) (Previously Unreleased)
Out Of My Hands
Cupid's Got A Brand New Gun (New Vers.) (Previously Unreleased)
Coal
Try (Alt. Vers.) (Previously Unreleased)
No Myth
Barely A Sound (Instrumental) (Previously Unreleased)
Don't Let Me Go
All That That Implies
Whole Truth
Brave New World
Me Around (Demo) (Previously Unreleased)
Long Way Down (Look What The Cat Drug In) (New Version) (Previously
Unreleased)
Macy Day Parade
Figment
Bucket Brigade
I Can Tell
Walter Reed
Opening (From The Film, "Melvin Goes To Dinner) (Previously Unreleased)
Looking over Michael Penn's four-album tenure at BMG and Sony – March
(1989), Free For All (1992), Resigned (1997) and MP4: Days Since a
Lost Time Accident -- is sort of like watching that modern-day,
time-shuffling film noir Memento, a comparison that the cinema-savvy
Penn might appreciate. His is a career story that unfolds in reverse
when compared to many of his contemporary singer-songwriters. The Los
Angeles-based Penn debuted dramatically in 1989 with "No Myth," an
instantly memorable anthem to youthful romantic longing that became a
major MTV and radio hit, and March, an album hailed by critics and
embraced by a wide-ranging audience. But the mainstream soon moved on
and Penn segued from almost-household name into highly regarded but
far less visible cult status, an artist whose carefully crafted albums
grew more incisive as his market share became more rarefied.
Penn can perhaps also be likened to one of the authors he has often
expressed admiration for, novelist and screenwriter John Fante, who
lived in the Bunker Hill neighborhood that Penn name-checks on one of
these tracks. Fante amassed a rich body of work evoking mid-20th
Century L.A., work that continues to be unearthed and appreciated by
new audiences, work with enduring relevance. For a time, Fante was a
part of the Hollywood movie machine, toiling in it while not quite
feeling part of it. Similarly, Penn is an independent thinker
functioning in a major-label world, and that shows in Penn's approach
to this collection.
Here's s a treat
Palms and Runes, Tarot and Tea contains material garnered from
throughout Penn's sixteen-year career – album cuts, demos and
alternate takes, along with a few freshly recorded versions of older
tunes – but it has the feel of something entirely new. When Legacy
approached Penn to help assemble this compilation in a very hands-on
way, he saw an opportunity: "I figured I should try to make this an
actual album instead of just a collection of old songs-- or at least
make it feel like one to me. I picked stuff that I still felt
connected to and that fit together."
By juxtaposing tracks according to mood and content rather than just
by chronology or familiarity, Penn has fashioned a compelling,
impressionistic self-portrait: "I wanted it to head somewhere. I still
think of albums as having sides so it had to be split in two.. but
since most of what I write about is the difference between love and
limerence, it wasn't hard to fashion a through-line in my head."
"Limerence" isn't the kind of word one runs across every day, and
rarely in conversation, but Penn has chosen it pointedly. As the
Oxford American Dictionary defines it, limerence is "the state of
being infatuated or obsessed with another person, typically
involuntary and characterized by a strong desire for reciprocation of
one's feelings..." – encapsulating in a single word the dilemma so
often faced by the protagonists of Penn's songs, characters "wounded
unto death by something called love," as he puts it in "Cupid's Got A
Brand New Gun."
In fact, Penn went into the studio to remake "Cupid's Got a Brand New
Gun" and two others: "I always felt that 'Cupid' was a better song
than the original recording. 'Bunker Hill' and 'Long Way Down' are
always in my live set and I still feel very connected to them so
recording them again was fun."
Penn's songwriting scenarios -- of relationships corroded by lies,
delusion and betrayal -- incorporate both serious drama and black
humor. They might seem bitter or cynical, except that in many of his
songs hope, however tenuous, springs eternal. Penn writes durable
melodies, often with a bright, jangly, mid-sixties folk-rock feel that
belies the downbeat nature of his words. There's just a hint of the
psychedelic, to make everything seem a little bit woozy. His lyrics,
which boast impressively fast-paced verbal twists and turns, balance
the specific with the surreal. And he brings an affecting, melancholy
ache to his vocal performances, especially when he's playing the
little guy with big ideas battling circumstances beyond his control.
His independently released 2005 album Mr. Hollywood, Jr. 1947, from
which "Walter Reed" was taken, particularly focuses on this theme,
moving away from romantic miniatures of contemporary life to
conspiratorial stories in a post-World War II military-industrial
complex, his guitar-based arrangements underscored by eerie electronic
touches. An engrossing song cycle, redolent of Fante that deserved a
wider hearing, Mr. Hollywood Jr. 1947 has now been rescued and
reissued as part of Penn's SonyBMG catalogue.
Among other previously unreleased tracks, "Try," he explains, "was
just an alternate version we recorded while in New York for some Sony
wing ding. The version of 'Lucky One' here is the one I originally
recorded for Days Since A Lost Time Accident. That song started out
as this little acoustic lullaby to my son but my manager at the time
heard it and thought it could get on the radio... that's where all the
trouble always begins. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, I recorded
it for the album, goosed up to this quirky rock version. Brendan took
it and made it huge and amazing. I figured a fan might want to have
this too."
One can search for – and find – themes repeated or contrasted in
Penn's artful stacking of these tracks. On one, a character is stuck
in traffic on L.A.'s winding Cahuenga Boulevard; on another, he's
racing down a freeway towards the future. The big beat of "No Myth"
is placed beside the elegant, evocative "Barely A Sound," which has
neither words nor super-sized drums yet still manages to be utterly
affecting.
No exercise in nostalgia, Palms and Runes is an invitation from Penn
to take a deeper look at his repertoire, to discover or get
reacquainted, to find connections and dig for clues. This is Michael
Penn in the here and now, the place where he's always managed to stay.
Don't look back.
-- Michael Hill
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