Here’s a decision for ya: You’re a fairly hip up-and-coming singer/songwriter (like, sassy and sweet at the same time and able to pull off the handkerchief headband), working on your debut album. You happen to do a pretty killer version of Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.” Do you include it? Is it too obvious of an irony/nostalgia play for your late-twenties/early-thirties audience? Doesn’t it show how your voice, slightly nasally, but largely winsome, can make touching and heartfelt even the cheesiest of songs? If nothing else, won’t it give people something to talk about?
Well, Megan Jo Wilson went for it in Seed, Stars, Galaxies, released last week with a show at the Big Easy. She strips the tune positively naked, accompanying her vocals with just the slightest plucked chords on a plugged-in acoustic. I love it. With her vibrato and range, you might think she was Alicia Keys.
There are other choices here, however, with which I might disagree. For instance, Wilson chooses to stretch out the promising “Blessing” well past the eight-minute mark. Built from simple acoustic boom-chik chords, a breath of stand-up bass from Coming Grasser Justin Maxwell, and Wilson’s languid vocals, the first time you hear the hook of Maxwell’s bass breaking down into the chorus, “I wish you every blessing in the world,” is downright breathtaking. However, after five or six of those hooks, even though there are progressions in the lyrics and delivery, the impact is lost. I’m downright sleepy by the song’s finish. Languid becomes torpid. Same goes for “Dawn” — Ginger Cote’s subtle brushes are totally forgotten as the song approaches nine minutes.
And I also might quibble with the choice to bury the better version of the best song here, “Take Me Away,” as a hidden tune (did Nevermind start that trend? If so, that’s reason enough for me to forsake my love of that album) following the album’s last song, the spare jazz piece “I Need to Know.” It starts with 3:29 to play on the track, after about two minutes of silence, with a simple strum dipping into minor chords, and lets loose with all the lo-fi alt-country sass the proper treatment holds back. Here at the end, sped up, its rough edges better underline the genuine emotion in the lyrics and a chorus that makes you want to find someone to make out with in the corner: “So take me away my sweet, like the night you took me off my feet/ The sun is on the other side of the world, and in the nighttime I’m your girl.” While the proper version does include a nice guitar break from Mark Butterfield, that’s just not this album’s style. No, I want this hidden urgency that leaves Wilson just about breathless at the finish.
One very good choice? The packaging, a nice play on a well-worn ‘70s LP.
And with “Take Me Away” as an early favorite for the top 10 songs of 2006, and “Farm Day” as a successful full-band tune out of a dubious premise to open the album, Megan Jo Wilson’s debut disc remains a strong introduction and suggests a future as a band leader, like her frequent collaborator Sara Cox, rather than a solo artist.
On the Web
Megan Jo Wilson: www.meganjowilson.com Email the author
Sam Pfeifle: sam_pfeifle@yahoo.com
