Christopher Owens has been a little bemused for the past coupla years, how the man behind one of the great indie bands Girls could go solo, maintain a tremendous and consistent output of new material and find himself stupendously out of favor with, well, everyone except for me it feels like, is a shocker.
The reason is a mish mash of perception and reality, he lost his cool, he lost his band, he lost his mystery, the material, both first solo album Lysandre and the follow up A New Testament were glorious pop rock concoctions, really just about flawless selections of extremely intelligent, energetic well written, excellent if simple lyric, albums. 23 three songs and they are all wonderful, but even Girls fanatic Alyson Camus has essentially ignored them. And even I took last years A New Testament for granted.
Christopher Owens is like a girl you fell out of love with. Why? No reason, no reason not to love her anymore, she looks the same and smells the same, still as sweet and cute and other people are still envious but you just don’t love her any more. Maybe it was the discovery he wasn’t gay or the manner in which his story went from intriguing to creepy, or age has taken a little of his cuteness. I remember seeing Girls open for Los Campesinos and Owens making out with his bass player on stage, the audience howled… he has lost the ability to make us howl.
But I am still in love. His third solo album Chrissybaby Forever, is a little rockier than we are used to lately (he has called it a return to basics… but that doesn’t mean anything), and it moves from the indie rocker “Another Loser Fuck Up” to the “The Tide Is High” rip, the entirely witty puntastic “Heroine (Got Nothing On You)” to the Davy Jones as acoustic folkie “Come On And Kiss Me” and all points in between, these are just glorious and tuneful. There is something so right about Owens songs, they are such great tick tock pop constructions. He insults nobodies intelligence, every song makes its presence felt and stops -simple, clever love songs. Owens voice is light but not weak, and he sings with just the right feel, he sells his songs exactly right and the music, all instruments performed by Owens, maybe a little too anonymous if you need a complaint.
Written in seclusion over a period of a month with engineer JJ Wiesler it is simple, sterling and beautiful. Everything works here, it is all first rate for its near one hour. He never falters. Remember that girl you broke up with for no reason? Now remember running into her a month later in a club, getting on your knees and begging her to come back. It’s not strait jacketed Chrissybaby who is crazy, it is us.
Grade: A-
