Band: Father John Misty
Album: Fear Fun
Best song: “Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings” is the best song on the album.
Worst song: “Only Son of the Ladiesman” is kind of hokey.
I was kind of a lame-comer to the Fleet Foxes. Like so many experiences, the second Fleet Foxes record really hit me at a time when I was very vulnerable to such things. As such, “Montezuma” became the theme, essentially, for my 30 years project. I can understand why people don’t like Fleet Foxes, but that record really was important to me.
I do’t know the internal processes of a band like the Fleet Foxes, so I have no idea of Josh Tillman’s role in the band. Does he, the drummer, write a lot of songs? Is the band really collaborative? Would someone like Tillman — who joined the band in 2008 and wasn’t there from the beginning — contribute less?
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The Father John Misty moniker is new for Tillman, but Fear Fun is actually his eighth record. Having used to record under the J. Tillman (creative!) name, his records spoke more to the Nick Drake style of record than the pastoral symphonies that the Fleet Foxes do. Indeed, songs like “Age of Man” — off 2009’s Year in the Kingdom sounds an awful lot like famous Drake homager Iron & Wine.
Which is what, on some level, makes Fear Fun so impressive. Tillman’s got a heretofore unrealized grasp of the production elements of making records. Songs that would’ve been sparse are now fully realized.
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It’s worth noting, that the record has a concept thing going on, as well. Having moved from the Pacific Northwest to Los Angeles, Tillman dots Fear Fun with references to Southern California. Or rather, the views of the Southland mostly existing in the culture at-large. “Babylon” is referenced, the notion of “whores” is rampant and he even has an entire song on the artist’s struggle of commercialism v. artistry (“I’m Writing a Novel,” in which he also mocks the naïvete of a newcomer to Los Angeles). It doesn’t hurt that said song is one of the best songs on the record. The album dances around religion and its role in the Los Angeles area (the first single “Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings” and the chanting of “O I Long to Feel Your Arms Around Me”) and it deals in California new-ageism (“Tee Pees 1-12”), but it mostly deals in mockingly celebrating the image of the Golden State.
And, musically, it works as such. The record is open and airy. “Well, You Can Do It Without Me” has a honky tonk influence that surpasses the terrible music of the 1970s AAA country bullshit that also came out of Laurel Canyon (The Eagles, Jackson Browne, etc.). “Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings” is an open-ended dirge, somehow fitting in and not working in the context of the record. “Nancy From Now On” is desperately arranged, with a full compliment of keys and guitars. It’s a well-put-together record, a wide departure for Tillman and a welcome one.
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It’s funny how, even in a mostly post-MTV world, a video can make something matter. When a few TV entertainment sites brought the video to “Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings” to fans of the Ursuline Academy graduate Aubrey Plaza. The star of TV’s Parks & Recreation follows the lead of all-too-many a TV actress to star as a minor demolisher of things in the video. The song, probably the best song on the record, is built around a “When the Levee Breaks”-esque drum Tillman’s pleading intonation and an apparently open-stringed guitar chord progression. It takes a certain type of person to act well in a music video; after all, it’s all pantomine. And Plaza’s expressive face and physicality is a wild departure from her “Parks & Recreation” character. It adds a new interpretation to the song, making a more fulfilling record.
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Tillman’s previous records would, in the words of Pitchfork “[lull you] nearly into nonexistence.” They were, at best, very boring. Fear Fun has Tillman moving away from that, to much success.
