Yahoo! Music Review

Released on 05/03/07
Label: Polydor

For those pop stars with a whiff of success under their belt, it is far too easy to write about tour buses, groupies, exhaustion and why being surrounded by money, adulation and easy sex is not quite so fulfilling and enjoyable as they once thought it might be. Recent examples here are Robbie Williams' "Rudebox" and Eminem's "Encore" - both of which translated into an hour's worth of self-pity. This is the quickest route to alienate the star from their fanbase - most of whom have no money, a bastard for a boss and get it once a week, if they're lucky. The empathetic hearts of their audience, in other words, do not bleed.

In this respect, US singer songwriter Richard Swift has come up with a novel idea: pen an entire album about the rock star blues, but do it before you're famous. For this is precisely what "Dressed Up For The Letdown" offers - a blow-by-blow confessional of life at the bottom of the musical food chain, replete with tales of confidence meltdown, unsympathetic A&R men and suicidal tendencies. Intriguingly, it's a concept Swift pulls off with some panache; drawing on a host of Anglophile influences (Kinks, Sir Macca, Morrissey) and weaving them into some dazzling Tin Pan Alley songwriting.

At its best, as on the acid tongued "Artist & Repertoire", the results are both melodious and funny. "Sorry Mr Swift", croons Swift, from the perspective of a be-suited record exec, "but there's no radio, that likes to play songs of your lover's sorrow. Just sing us a jingle and we'll flush you some bread, and all it'll cost you is your heart and your head". Similarly cutting are "P.S. It All Falls Down", "Ballad Of You Know Who" and "The Million Dollar Baby", the latter built around the sing-a-long chorus "I wish I was dead, most of the time..." The bittersweet humiliation of door slamming on soul is audibly palpable.

However, these moments of brilliance aside, over an entire album it palls. Swift might be looking up from the gutter, but the fact remains that a musician moaning about his trade is about as appealing as a disgruntled bus driver or an unfulfilled dentist. The double irony being that he is now signed to an imprint on the biggest record label in the world. So while "Dressed Up For The Letdown" is a classy, clever record, it is not one you can imagine yourself revisiting that often. The uninitiated would be better off seeking Swift's first two albums ("The Novelist" and "Walking Without Effort") safe in the knowledge that the man himself is now free to wallow in the misery of his own success.

    by Adam Webb