Jesse Malin makes me feel like I should be more cynical.
He’s one of those singer-songwriters that I feel like I’ve missed the boat on. Like Mew, he’s an artist that essentially exists in a vacuum for me: for some reason, I know nothing of Malin’s work outside of his third record, Glitter in the Gutter, despite the fact that popular opinion thinks far more highly of his debut The Fine Art of Self-Destruction. (And by “for some reason”, I mean “I read somewhere that this record had a Springsteen feature on it”.)
And make no mistake, Glitter is vastly uncool. It’s all workaday rock that vaguely falls under the Ryan Adams “Americana/Rock” umbrella, Malin spinning romanticized yarns about young, exuberantly dumb kids with an affected, nasal tone. It’s entirely earnest, without a hint of irony; even when he salutes his heroes The Replacements with a piano-ballad, torch-song take on “Bastards of Young”, he sounds so sincere that he actually kind of sells the thing.
Perhaps that’s what resonates with me about Glitter in the Gutter: the unwavering sincerity. It’s rarely the lyrical content, because some of Malin’s phrasing falls clunky. Consider “Black Haired Girl”, which whips out what should be a dead-in-the-water couplet, “baby let’s take a ride, just like Bonnie and Clyde” and sells it because it sounds like such a genuine paean to some mythical raven-haired temptress that you can’t help but buy in. The giddy, chugging “Prisoners of Paradise” is basically perfect power-pop — the kind his revered ‘Mats would gladly co-sign, I think — and even though we’ve heard it earlier in the record with “In the Modern World”, both tracks are high-functioning, sugar-addled nuggets.
When he drops the tempo, Malin seems to echo his other hero, Mr. Bruce Springsteen; “Lucinda” may be a tribute to the Divine Miss Williams, alt-country goddess extraordinaire, but it’s mid-tempo shuffle recalls a Brooooce deep cut, with honeyed harmonies from someone who sounds suspiciously like Patti Scialfa. “Don’t Let Them Take You Down (Beautiful Day)” even sounds like something Bruce would’ve dropped on one of his late-’00s records — in fact, it would’ve sounded gangbusters on Magic — down to the subtle harmonies and the inventively-deployed minor chords.
It’s all a gamely tuneful rock record full of singalong choruses, and one I would have grooved to even if Bruce had never stopped by. Fortunately, he does, contributing a verse and gruff harmonies to “Broken Radio”, a soulful, slow-burn piano rocker that is easily the best thing here; it’s in these moments, singing with and co-signed by his mentor, that Jesse Malin sounds like the great singer-songwriter that (according to the internet) the rest of his discography agrees he is. Perhaps it’s never on the level of genius that much of this list is, but Glitter in the Gutter feels like instant nostalgia, a wistful and sweet pop-rock album with hooks to spare.
Playlist Track: I mean, come on, it’s “Broken Radio”. If you don’t get goosebumps when Bruce’s harmonies come in, I don’t get you.
Drew's Album of the Day 