Monday, April 11, 2011

Miles Nielsen's Lethargic Start, Indefinite Legacy


It isn’t impossible to properly arrange the songs on a predominantly weak album into an order sufficient enough to carry the whole effort. It’s really not even remotely difficult.  One could make a veritable list of albums that have become classics, yet only had 4 or 5 solid tracks on them (I won’t start naming names, because that will only instigate a never ending debate wherein no one will agree and no one will win. So please, just accept the statement and move on).  Miles Nielsen’s debut album suffers just such a misfortune – and even with well over half of the tracks on it being quite good.  The result, however, of a poorly organized tracklist is an album that sputters and fails to immediately ignite, and thus fails to get a fair shake by anyone lacking the endurance to tolerate a slow start – which, these days, is everyone. The shame about such a tragedy befalling this album, is that it doesn't deserve the first impression it makes.

With attention spans at an all time low this day and age, entertainers are charged with the often times daunting task of either packing a punch immediately, or packing it up and going home. In the realm of music, an artist’s song or album has about 30 seconds to take hold, or it will indefinitely sink – regardless of whether or not it would have been fully capable of swimming, given half a chance. That’s not how is should be, but that’s sadly how it is.

Miles Nielsen’s self-titled is definitely a slow starter. It takes muddling through the first three painfully uninspired tracks before the band finds their footing. Once they find it, they’re golden, but the time it takes to get there is something few will be bothered to put the effort into. From the first track “Festival”, through “1938”, you’re expected to brave flatly mixed and tinny post production, applied to thoroughly uninteresting material, and musicianship that sounds as bored with that material as you are. “Gravity Girl” and “Lost My Mind” are formulaic lame ducks no matter how you slice them, but given a little more kick in their mastering, they might have been salvageable. This element improves, but I have to wonder how a professionally pressed release has such inconsistent post production...

Once you hit “Don’t You” the album finally takes a sharp turn in the right direction. The production mysteriously gets better - which is curious, actually; you can hear a noticeable increase in depth and dimension beginning with this song, whereas all the prior tracks sounded like they were recorded coming out of the speakers in an elevator (flat bass, percussion little more than clicks and clacks, etc.), and through the remainder of the album, your listening experience is significantly more enjoyable.

So, the first three crappy tracks aside, you have nine consecutively solid songs here that do Neilsen more justice than you’d originally permit.   He has an appealing Dylan-esque voice, accompanied by a good mind for decorative and poetic lyrical illustration.  An especially good example is on “Wine”, a moody tale of the wanton behavior people engage in under the influence of alcohol.  Here, and in the tracks that immediately precede and follow, Nielsen demonstrates some very clever contradictory word play - almost like punchlines: “Watched you from another story / my the view seems nice...” and “The waitress said I should send one over / had an idea and sent it twice”.

The song that follows, titled “Lucy”, is another gem. It's got the playful and carefree delivery of something Ween would record, and the tongue-in-cheek narration to match: “Lucy was married four times / the third time was the best time for me”.  Where you might have been bored and sold short by the album's first three songs, the remaining nine really make up for it. By each song’s end you feel almost as though you’ve undergone a thoroughly cleansing catharsis of some sort.

“Martha” is another stand-out track – and also trivially interesting. The content and delivery of the song almost (almost) takes on the feel of the early work of Tom Waits.  Coincidentally, Tom Waits actually does have a title in his early catalogue called “Martha” – and, likewise, it appeared on his debut album (Closing Time, Asylum Records, 1973).

To his credit, Miles Nielsen is an artist without gimmick. To his fault, he’s also an artist arriving in a time when gimmicks are needed to receive any proper attention.  This is straight forward folksy rock music, nothing more or less.  While each of his songs might offer a unique perspective, or have a catchy hook, Nielsen’s fare is still more or less standard issue, lacking any distinguishing appeal.  On the upside, one could say the same of Dylan, or Tom Waits in their early years. They’ve become pop cultural icons in the present day, but in their beginnings they were tepidly received, and struggled to find a voice on any platform, and in a direction that anybody would look in.  Miles Nielsen’s debut, similarly, offers an equal divide between his existing capabilities and his room for improvement.  Seeds sown deep and cultivated carefully sustain careers longer than ready grown one offs.  
Assuming Nielsen has the endurance (and no doubt any successful musician will tell you it takes a lot of that) to weather the historically trying climate of these modern times, it isn’t far fetched to envision this early effort being a fan coveted classic later on in his career.  While this isn’t anywhere near a horrible album, it would still be kind of disappointing to have it be Nielsen's only legacy.

For best results, listen to the album in this order:
  1. Don't You
  2. Gravity Girl
  3. 1938
  4. Wine
  5. Hey Hey Hey
  6. Martha
  7. Lost My Mind
  8. A Festival
  9. Sugaree
  10. Lucy
  11. Good Heart Sway
  12. The Crown







1 comment:

  1. You have no clue! !!! Sounds like you just made some sh%t up to put your name out there for your crappy blog. This album is a hit from front to back and back again! Wake up from the pipe!!

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