Graham Reid | | 1 min read
Too Young
So here's what we might call “The Weird Al Conundrum”: if you love a comedian who delivers very funny parodies of artists and genres – like “Weird Al” Yankovic taking off Michael Jackson, Queen, black hip-hop artists, Madonna, James Blunt and others – would you necessarily follow them into their career when they did their own songs?
Would you buy an album of songs by Weird Al, for example, if they weren't parodies but originals?
Bret McKenzie of “New Zealand's fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo a capella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo” faced that difficulty with his first album outside of Flight of the Conchords, the telegraphingly-named 2022 album Songs Without Jokes.
He managed to pull it off and here again he plays a (mostly) straight bat in these original songs.
Not that there aren't droll or humorous observations here: the opener Bethnal Green Blues considers people who died in sad, stupid accidents as the singer thinks “all I want to do is make a difference, not fade away into insignificance . . . but every day's a little more difficult”.
At times McKenzie – formerly in Black Seeds and the Wellington Ukulele Orchestra -- couples his pop-craft with the observational wit of Randy Newman (the jaunty title track about conspiracy believers, “if this could happen to you it could happen to me”) but there's also thoughtful poignancy in the lovely Highs and Lows and especially All the Time with “child you're beautiful . . . when you're as old as me who knows what this world will be”.
Here too is the wry spirit of Harry Nilsson, Jimmy Buffett and the shoulder-shrug lyrics of John Prine's back-porch folksy That's The Way That The World Goes 'Round which slips in seamlessly via a New Orleans arrangement.
McKenzie commands country (the guileless declaration of love on All I Need), end-of-tether country-soul (Too Young) and the easy roll of Gerry Rafferty-like folk-pop (Eyes on the Sun).
Given his mastery of genres in the Conchords, it's no surprise McKenzie taps diverse sources for a thoroughly engaging, not-many-jokes album.
Comfortable and suburban pop which feels satisfyingly familiar, but also a bit fresh and honest at the same time.
Not a dick on this dancefloor in the lounge with Dad's chair and the coffee-table pushed back.
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You can hear and by this album at bandcamp here
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