The Clientele, God Save The Clientele

I’ve had this record on rotation for weeks, mostly because I wanted to come up with something better than this:

“Yeah, it’s okay, but it sounds a lot like the last record and not really in a surprisingly illuminating way or anything. It’s more like, if you thought the last record was asking questions, well, now they’re satisfied with those questions as answers. If sunlight, then sunlight. And more sunlight. And it is a decent record and it really does ooze blue light and barbeque and the smell of children and small plastic pools and a certain sensibility (or lack of one) that smacks even more strongly of ’60s nostalgia, well-crafted, melodic, etc. This is a great pop record, it sounds like a great pop record. If exposed to oxygen, it behaves like a great pop record. Maybe it is a great fucking pop record. But that’s all it is. And in an awfully non-specific away, as well. I mean, this could be nostalgia for just about anything pat or well-executed — bee-hive hairdos, sand castles, etc. For a record of the now, it sure sounds like a record of the inexact then — which these days is often considered an asset. Everything’s been done, so let’s take something that’s been sonically run and do it well: all right. And go team. And again, that doesn’t mean this record’s hard to listen to (is honey hard to listen to? No, sister, it is not) or that it isn’t seasonal (just don’t play it after Labor Day) or even kind of resplendent in a fucked-up, borrowed glory sort of way. The thing is, it’s limited. It’s hard to really recommend this. You might, you could, in the same way that you might recommend a day at the beach or a night with a conversationally limited blonde. But you couldn’t, in good faith, say this record will change your life. This band cannot be your life — this band can’t be more than a sort of sequined accessory to life. This band’s too easy to be your life. And again, a lot of people are going to say what the fuck is wrong with that? And maybe they’re right. Maybe I’m just cantankerous, just ulcerous, just lurching towards my 30th birthday with a head full of noise and a heart that loves sentiment, sure, but doesn’t give a shit about sentimentality. Maybe I’ve gone wrong, critically. Maybe I’ve forgotten what music’s all about. Maybe insisting upon ambition is an inevitably pretentious stance. But you know what? What the fuck. Maybe a shimmer, a certain lushness, and stylistic excess isn’t enough. Maybe we don’t need the merely pleasant. Maybe we’ve had more than enough, and it’s starting to hurt.”

Again, I’ve left the CD on the windowsill, to see if it would grow. I’ve listened to it in my car. I’ve listened to it with underage girls. And I’ve listened to it while trying to sleep through the sodden hangover of the Houston scene. Listened, sure, and actively, but I never found myself having much to say (this being the full extent). I never really needed to respond to the record. I never found a reason to talk back. Or ask questions. Or talk out of turn and get myself in trouble. And if you’re spiritually exhausted, maybe that’s exactly what you need: music that asks nothing of you. Music that insulates you from you. Music that is pretty but that does not launch ships. Music that is honeycomb and will not leave you greatly changed. There is no reason to be afraid.