Published on Jan 6, 2003
Sometimes I just don’t get you people. Maybe it was the whole
millennium thing distracting everybody or something. Maybe it was
criminally poor promotion by the labels involved. But the year 2000
probably set a modern record for “Most Really Good Albums That
Hardly Anybody Bought”. In a just universe, bestsellers that year
would have included The Jayhawks’
Smile, Fastball’s
The Harsh Light of Day, and this, Shawn Mullins’ sophomore
try as a major-label bonus baby.
The Mullins backstory is the stuff of legend. Ten years of
coffeehouse gigs and self-published acoustic CDs led up to Mullins’
1998 indie album
Soul’s Core. Then one day some bright fellow at a big
Atlanta station took a chance on the local guy and threw “Lullaby”
on the playlist. Boom: regional hit single, major label signing,
national hit, platinum album, etc., etc.
The inevitable big-budget follow-up album, however, may have
been doomed from the start by short-sighted label execs. Seamless
as
Beneath The Velvet Sun might appear on first listen, it’s
actually a two-part affair. The nine-song core of the album was
recorded in Atlanta and co-produced by Mullins and Anthony J.
Resta. It’s a restless affair, veering from the edgy, literate folk
that had been Mullins’ trademark as an undiscovered regional artist
(“Yellow Dog Song”) to airy, atmospheric rock (“North On 95,”
“Santa Fe”) to a soaring piano-and-strings ballad co-written with
his wife (“We Run”). The highlight of this set is a funked-up,
temperature-heightening duet between Mullins and very special guest
Shelby Lynne on the grinding, memorable “I Know.”
The first four songs, however, were apparently recorded after
Columbia decided they didn’t hear a single (read: a “Lullaby”
clone) among Mullins’ initial set. So, they dragged him out to LA
to record a few follow-up tracks with Julian Raymond, hit-making
producer for, ironically enough, Fastball. The results were strong,
including a pair of highly melodic pop-rock tunes (the clever
“Amy’s Eyes” and the unremarkable yet pretty “Everywhere I Go”) and
– hey, folks, there it is – a name-dropping,
spoken-verse-over-a-hip-hop-beat, “Lullaby”-like piece of Mullins
magic called “Up All Night.” It was the perfect follow-up to
“Lullaby” – so, naturally, the label chose “Everywhere I Go” as the
first single. (As Casey Stengel famously said, “Doesn’t anybody
know how to play this here game?”)
Ironically, the fourth song of the Raymond set, and quite
possibly the best on the album, is a stirring, largely acoustic
anthem to personal integrity called “Something To Believe In.” The
fact that it was recorded under pressure from the label to conform
to their creative tastes is about as close to perfect irony as
you’re likely to encounter in your local record store, and
doubtless lost on those whom you suspect it was aimed at.
But I’ve dwelled too long already on the circumstances
surrounding this ill-fated album. The essential information here is
this: Shawn Mullins has a remarkable voice equally capable of
rumbly, rough-edged lows and billowing high notes; a terrific ear
for melody; and a fiction writer’s touch with character details.
This is a superb set of songs that is compromised only by Mullins’
apparent desire to please the people who took his gentle,
idiosyncratic music and tried to make a quick buck off it. Don’t
hold against him the fact that the label chose for the first single
the only somewhat weightless, predictable song on the entire album.
There’s a ton of good music on here that’s worthwhile either for
the long-time Mullins fan or the casual listener intrigued by
artfully conceived, highly melodic singer-songwriter material.
Like the Jayhawks, like Fastball, Mullins found himself in 2002
once again without major-label backing. In the case of Fastball,
the result has been a premature breakup. The Jayhawks have
soldiered on at half-strength, working as a largely acoustic trio.
The answer has been simpler for Mullins, the once-and-again
troubadour. He simply shrugged off the disappointing sales of this
album, continued performing solo and producing others’ albums, and
is now hard at work on a fascinating collaboration with fellow
outside-the-mainstream songsmiths Matthew Sweet and Pete Droge.
Hint: buy their album. The majors probably won’t touch it, which
will be your first clue that it’s really good.