A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Jealous Butcher reissue of the Meaningless LP by Jon Brion. Sometimes, as good as a record might be, it just cannot buy a break. Take the Jealous Butcher reissue of Jon Brion’s Meaningless LP, for example; even a cursory listen effortlessly illustrates the album’s power pop perfection but, released as it was alongside albums like Gorillaz’ self-titled debut, Ani DiFranco’a Revelling/Reckoning, Sum 41’s All Killer, No Filler and Exciter by Depeche Mode, Meaningless went almost completely unnoticed. Then, seemingly to add insult to injury, the album came dangerously close to experiencing the same fate again when it was reissued on limited edition, light blue vinyl. I confess that I slept on the reissue too – until now. In the spirit of “better late than never” though, I’m giving this album its’ due because it really is that good and does indeed deserve it.
As soon as needle catches groove and “Gotta Start Somewhere” opens the A-side of Meaningless (with more than just a hint of irony), listeners are instantly immersed in a perfectly offbeat combination of electronic accoutrements and pop flavors that are about as sweet as candy as well as unusual but without apology. Throughout the song too, lines like, “So infinite and scary too/ Just ask for it/ And it’s coming true/ I continue in hope I have a follow-up/ And if I do then you might not ever shut me up” perfectly celebrate the senses of fear and discovery that Brion’s voice simply brims with, and listeners will find it absolutely impossible to not just want to follow along, almost nipping at the singer’s heels; as soon as “…Somewhere” ends, they’ll be racing and trying to catch up with the obviously pitch and speed-adjusted backing tracks of “I Believe She’s Lying.” Now, while every other artist who has tried to make something comparable to this oversped monstrosity since 2001 [which was the original release date for Meaningless –ed] has come off sounding either completely inimitable (read: live performances never sound comparable to the studio version of the song – Ben Folds has been found guilty of this, as have many other musicians), Brion leans into the synthetic presentatio, and doesn’t bother trying to make it sound normal – which is revelatory, in its’ own way. Here, the beat sounds like it wants to trip over itself while synthetic bleats ensure that they’re impossible to ignore and both Brion’s guitar sounds like it’s coming from an LP that’s playing at 45 RPM but the singer’s voice sounds more than a little like that of John Lennon than any uninitiated listener will believe (check out lines like, “Although she’s none the wiser/ Although we’ve barely met/ I can recognize her/ From the treatment that I get) – but it still manages to lock together beautifully when this chirping, burbling marvel achieves the title lyric at the top of the chorus; when that relief gets set, it’s impossible not to sigh – no matter how many times listeners hear it.
After “I Believe She’s Mine” skitters away, the album’s title track stomps through with a perfect indie posture which could only have been achieved by a musician who spent hours with a click track and decades of pop seasoning and “Ruin My Day” both revives and rewrites Paul McCartney’s perfect pop sensibility for a new millennial college rock crowd, before “Walking Through Walls” boldly hits upon a very Revolver kind of pop swing that will weaken listeners’ knees as the side closes. There, even a quarter century later [or three years after the Jealous Butcher’s reissue –ed], it’s impossible not to feel like listeners have happened upon the best song that fell off the mixing desk as The Beatles were recording The Beatles (or “The White Album,” if you must); there’s a confidence in the delivery of lines like, “I’m standing up straight/ I’m standing up tall/ I’ve no time to waste/ I’m walking through walls/ Get out of my way, motherfucker/ Start moving you all, motherfucker/ I’m losing my brakes/ I’m walking through walls” which it’s impossible to believe were committed to tape during any session for a musician’s first album, but they stand here between the timbres of an excellent (and excellently unusual) pop song as proof.
As solidly as the A-side of Meaningless ends, it’s a little heart-wrenching to hear how weakly (and meekly) “Trouble” opens the B–. That isn’t to say that the song is bad, necessarily – anyone who hears it will be able to make note of some pretty evident gold flecks laced into the John Lennon-esque melody which powers the song as well as its heartwarming, college rock-identified chord progression, it is simply not the sort of thing that anyone hopes will lead off a side. How it happened may simply have been a matter of problematic placement on the CD releases which originally launched the album and no one though to correct the issue for the Jealous Butcher reissue, but that just means that it stands as a perfectly evident flaw in Meaningless‘ running, now. Happily, Brion’s heartbroken ode to disillusionment – “Hook, Line and Sinker” erases its preceding flaw by taking its time and really letting listeners FEEL Brion’s sadness with a spare arrangement (by the rest of the album’s standards), minor chords and a lilting and syrupy bridge.
After the downbeat drag presented in “Hook, Line and Sinker,” Brion returns to a more obviously Lennonesque posture to bring the energy back up a bit on “Dead To The World.” There, Brion’s return to his comfort zone is perfectly self-evident and listeners will have no difficulty appreciating it, but they may find themselves quietly hoping for some of the boundary-pushing that powered the A-side, before long – and they find exactly that in the break-up rumination, “Her Ghost.” There, the power increases as drums which sound like they were clearly programmed split through the Britpop-informed songwriting (check out lines like, “Every hour on the hour/ He will reappear and make it clear that he’s around/ It’s not your average social call/ He does it all without a sound”) ring brightly alongside keys and strings which may have been programmed instead of performed, but they don’t lose any steam. Steam getting lost proves to be exactly the problem from which “Same Mistakes” suffers, as it truly never progresses in speed beyond a mope – but, happily, the record closes after that with some brilliant twinkling which opens “Voices”, the album closer. There, almost like it knows that it needs to warm some cockles, the lines, “Hey, it’s me again/ Plain to see again/ Please, can I see you every day?/ I’m a fool again/ I fell in love with you again/ Please, can I see you every day?” follow the delicate chimes which open the song, and listeners will find a warm and happy place that they hadn’t perviously known they were looking for, before now. As the song progresses, listeners will find that such warmth is a wonderful thing to inhabit too; they’ll find that the sentiment of lines like, “You didn’t know what you were looking for/ ‘Til you heard the voices in your ears” is one that they shared before they even heard it coming and, when the cut finally runs out its seven-minute runtime and stylus finally lifts from vinyl, listeners will find that they were well-won by the end of the album’s play, and restarting all over again won’t take any hard convincing.
After having run front-to-back with Meaningless though, that restarting comes with a bit of guilt. After listeners run through it the first time, that guilt will come from the fact that, somehow, Meaningless fell through the cracks and didn’t get its due when it was originally released in 2001 (this critic takes solace in the fact that I joined the press in 2002, and didn’t know Meaningless existed) and, for me, the guilt comes because I slept so hard on this reissue that this review is only coming now, THREE YEARS after Jealous Butcher released it. As stated, some albums just can’t buy a break – but, at least now, I’ve tried to make up for my error and give this reissue its due. Some might call that, ahem, meaningless, but I say that even getting here late is better than never, if a few more hearts can be won by Meaningless. Find this reissue, reader – you won’t regret it. Remember – “You’ve gotta start somewhere.” [Bill Adams]
Artist:
https://www.jonbrion.net
https://www.facebook.com/JonBrionBrasil
https://www.instagram.com/jonbrion2022
https://www.instagram.com/p/y5sKexARMP/?hl=en
Album:
The vinyl reissue of Jon Brion’s Meaningless LP is out now on Jealous Butcher Records. Buy it here directly from Jealous Butcher Records.
