Review: Chloë and the Next 20th Century by Father John Misty
I’m going to come right out and say it: I don’t love this album, which is an enormous bummer for me because I’m a huge fan of Father John Misty. I’ve seen him in concert several times. I could recite most of his lyrics from memory and I’m a person that seldom pays much, if any attention to lyrics because I don’t think most song lyrics are terribly interesting. I’m not a professional critic and I therefore have the luxury of being able to be a total fanboy and say I’m really looking forward to a release and being pre-disposed to liking it, but this one just fell kind of flat for me.
Each of his past albums have included songs that immediately and permanently placed themselves in your musical memory: “Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings” and “I’m Writing a Novel” from Fear Fun? Instant classics. I Love You Honeybear is simply perfection from top to bottom. Not a single clunker. Any of the 11 tracks on Honeybear are believable as someone’s favorite tune off of that record. Pure Comedy is the equivalent of the string quartet playing while the Titanic was sinking. Everything is fucked, but we’re going out with a bang and we’re going to look and sound great doing it. God’s Favorite Customer has countless highlights as well. Four albums ranging from extremely solid to absolutely sublime classics. And that history lesson brings us to now and to Chloë…
Only three songs, “Buddy’s Rendezvous,” “Q4” and “The Next 20th Century” have made a lasting impression on me. They’re the only ones I remember much of anything about once the record is done playing and I’ve probably listened to it a couple of dozen times as of the date of this writing. FJM has always dabbled in pastiche, but Chloë feels like it’s playing dress up rather than being inspired by his influences. In the past when FJM has leaned on lush string arrangements from bygone eras, there’s still been some modern bite or some fiery sarcasm in the proceedings. A personal crisis or a scathing observation about the shittiness of modernity has cut against the beauty of the music, but so much of Chloë feels like listening to someone retell a dream they had, which is pretty damn interesting for the person doing the telling, but often of limited appeal to the person it’s being described to. One major issue for me getting into this record is that one of these three tracks doesn’t appear until the five spot.
“Buddy’s Rendezvous“ sounds like a less drunk Tom Waits song, but still with that biting, self-deprecating Father John Misty wit we’ve all come to know and love so much:
I’m at Buddy’s Rendezvous
Telling the losers and old-timers
How good I did with you
They almost believe me too
Nothing like dudes drinking and lamenting their mistakes to strangers…in this case a dad just out of prison talking about his daughter.
Too many songs though kind of plod along in imitation of a style/time period of music that I’m not terribly interested in…and maybe that’s on me. To be clear, I don’t think it’s a bad record, it’s just not one that moves the needle for me outside of a handful of songs.
The closing track though, “The Next 20th Century” is phenomenal and feels totally out of sync with the rest of the record. There’s a distinctly modern brooding to the whole song and then there’s a totally out of nowhere howling guitar that kicks in a few minutes into the song and hangs a bit of much needed drama and danger on the proceedings.
Very few, if any, artists have careers without dips and bumps in the road and for me at least, it feels like Chloë and the Next 20th Century is one of those bumps. Maybe these songs will feel more animated in a live setting.
