Alt-Americana has many pedagogues, but all too often they miss the mark by too carefully mimicking the genre they set out to honor. It can be limiting to compose mainly on acoustic guitar and find fresh ways to incorporate a harmonica lick or a tambourine backbeat. Those who try to adhere too closely to Americana’s strict mandates often sound derivative or throwback-y rather than emergent. Which is why Jeremy Fisher’s debut album, Goodbye Blue Monday, sounds so remarkably fresh and listenable – it’s alt-Americana without the heavy weight of reverence dragging it down, and he’s not afraid to stray from the traditional when it suits his sound. You’ll hear elements of early 1950s rock ‘n roll, folk protest, and mountain music woven in with more mainstream pop sounds as well.
The album opens strong with the impossibly catchy and likeable “Love is a Scar that Never Heals,” which sounds like a lost Simon and Garfunkel track from their Graduate-era catalog updated with an appealingly dark sense of humor. (“She runs guns, everyone wants guns…”) There are “doo-doo’s," hand claps, even Paul Simon’s signature accordion embellishments, but the song maintains an element of modern edge thanks to the lyrics and the imprecise vocal harmonies (Art Garfunkel would never have been caught dead uttering so imprecise a waver as the counter-melody on this song, which surprisingly updates the song nicely.)
“Jolene” is a lovely acoustic ballad with multi-tracked vocal harmonies and a gentle, loping rhythm that is offset by a ghostly synthesizer underneath it all. This track has inspired comparisons between Fisher and Tom Petty that I think are unjustified – nowhere in Fisher’s music will you hear the punky anger of Tom Petty’s early work. Nor are his lyrics particularly Petty-like – in fact, his songwriting style owes a greater debt to Dylan. And the harmony vocals here demonstrate his reverence for acts like the Righteous Brothers or the Everly Brothers.
“Cigarette” earned Fisher his record deal, after he made a homemade stop-motion video that became a huge hit on YouTube. The song itself is solid folk-rock with the same dark, wry lyrics that make “Scar” so instantly likeable:
“I’ll be your cigarette / light me up and get on with it / Good or bad, I’m just your habit.”
“American Girls” is a rollicking foot-stomper replete with tambourine and harmonica, again very Simon and Garfunkel-esque, lamenting Fisher’s bad luck with women – the juxtaposition of the happy music and the depressing lyrics keeps the song edgy where it might otherwise fall into that sycophantic alt-Americana territory.
Title track “Goodbye Blue Monday” brings the tempo down slightly and is the closest thing this album has to a traditional folk-rock ballad, though the guitar strumming maintains a peppiness and there is a noticeably toe-tapping drum beat throughout. Fisher’s wavering tenor is offset by a female harmony vocal to nice melancholic effect, but at its heart, this song has verve.
“Lay Down” sounds like something the Counting Crows might write after they drank a couple of strong cups of coffee. It opens in a minor key but resolves on the chorus into hopeful major chords and the overall effect is very appealing. “High School” is a fun reflection on the feeling of seeing old high school friends (or those who thought they were your old high school friends) after several years apart. Lyrically, it’s a song that is charmingly nostalgic for hometown innocence with a driving beat and a hooky melody that’s full of motion.
“Sula” is the catchiest song on an album full of catchy songs – here is Fisher’s “Mrs. Robinson.” It’s a hootenanny of a song that is impossible to resist, almost sounding like an old Appalachian mountain music standard, and yet there is a newness there too in the haunting “ooohs” and the pitch-perfect production – producer Hawksley Workman allows nothing unnecessary on the track and yet the sound is appropriately full at the same time. There are hand claps, a bass line played on the piano, and gorgeously complex harmonies that continue to grow and multiply so perfectly that the last line, which is sung a cappella, resonates like a church choir.
“16mm Dream” is a 6/8 ballad, probably the least inspired of the tracks, relying heavily on the cliché of B-3 organ, mournful slide guitar solo, and Irish drinking song rhythm. But despite the mediocrity of this song, there are some great lyrics:
“Okay - Nothin’ ain’t perfect/ But perfect ain’t nothin’ anyway.”
“Left Behind” is a simple melody, opening with just vocals and acoustic guitar. There’s nothing revolutionary about the song, but it’s charming and sweet and it’s a nice reminder of the simplicity of the folk music that informs Fisher’s songwriting. As the song continues, the sound builds with a B-3 organ and vocal harmonies and ringing xylophone. It’s a bittersweet song that would have made a nice album closer, but instead that honor fell to “Fall for Anything,” which is unfortunate, because this is the least remarkable song on the album. It sounds like a poorly written graduation speech set to a slow cut time with a loose, meandering melody. This is the only moment on the album that sounds derivative, or even slightly mocking. The oversimplicity of the instrumentation and the broad generalization of the lyrics sounds like a bad imitation of traditional country music, and the likeability of the song is not improved by its repetitiveness.
Despite these few minor missteps, this album is one of the best of its genre this year – full of appealing tones, hooky melodies, driving beats and clever lyrics. The fact that Fisher is Canadian makes his mastery of the Americana genre all the more enjoyable. He combines classic elements with emergent production and dark humor to create a solidly likeable debut album.
"Goodbye Blue Monday" is on sale August 28, 2007 from Wind-Up.
