Insignificance

Jim O'Rourke

Product Details

• Audio CD (December 11, 2001)
• Original Release Date: November 20, 2001
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Drag City
• ASIN: B00005R5L6
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #141,351 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Self-described "cheerful misanthrope" Jim O'Rourke was schooled in the trenches of experimentalism and high-headed music theory, making music on computers before it was fashionable to do so. Since the late '90s, he's emerged as an all-star producer and sideman (serving as Sonic Youth's bassist on several tours) as well as a relatively prolific solo artist. Not to say that Jeff Tweedy of Wilco's involvement this time around (O'Rourke produced Wilco's 2002 release, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot) doesn't have anything to do with the sheer pop success/excess of Insignificance. Playing Robert Quine or Richard Lloyd to O'Rourke's warped Lou Reed/Matthew Sweet, Tweedy adds crunchy yet light guitar tones on the radio-ready opener, "All Downhill from Here," which is driven home by "woo-hoos" and a happy-go-lucky climax. Oddly enough, this track is a roots-rock rave-up recalling, at least in spirit, Rick Derringer's hit "Rock & Roll Hoochie Koo" or Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama." Add O'Rourke's formula of juxtaposing pleasant streams and shuffles of crystalline easy-listening with unpleasant lyrics (think of a subtler Elvis Costello or less sentimental Morrissey) and delicate John Fahey-esque guitar interplay (especially on the last track "Life Goes Off"), and what you get is a surprisingly ingratiating yet challenging record. O'Rourke may leave his tongue glued to his cheek so that fans and detractors alike can continue scratching their heads, but on Insignificance, it sounds like he's accepted that cruel lullaby pop is where it's at--at least for now. --Cyndi Elliott

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars sweet and painful, December 3, 2001

By	Robert Jefferson (Pittsburgh, PA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This album follows in the tradition of his _Eureka_ album and _Halfway to a Threeway_ EP. Like both of them, the disc is chock full of warm, rich melodies and songwriting that recalls the best of 60's pop, with a bit of a perverse easy listening flavor. However, a few of the tracks on here are certainly more outwardly rocking than what he's done in the past, largely due to the presence of Wilco's Jeff Tweedy on guitar. The extra crunch gives the album more depth, allowing the music to take on a more active dimension in spots.

Once you strip away the melodies and guitar riffs, you're left with the lyrics. Like the darker moments on _Halfway_, the lyrics are sometimes hard to hear on a casual listen, but careful examination will reveal some rather disenchanted words. "Memory Lame" is a prime example: while the music itself is fairly bouncy and abjectly cheerful, O'Rourke sweetly sings: "Listening to you reminds me of the motor's endless drone/And how the deaf are so damn lucky". Throughout the album, it's quiet catharsis, but done in such a way as to be romantic.

If you've been turned off by some of O'Rourke's more abstract moments (his electroacoustic compositions, or his work with Gastr Del Sol) or you've never listened to his music before, this is probably the best place to start.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars that stripy pants guy, July 23, 2002

By	"glubak" (Mosman, NSW Australia) - See all my reviews

Jim O'Rourke's profile is high these days since his involvement in two of the year's most anticipated releases, Wilco's "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" and Sonic Youth's "Murray Street". But the man in the stripy pants has trumped the alternative rock icons - his own CD "Insignificance" is by far the best of the three albums.

This is music rooted in the early 70's in the nicest possible way. A mix of Lynyrd Skynyrd guitar muscle, Todd Rundgren piano-based pop, Joni Mitchell acoustic delicacy and Steely Dan melodic sophistication. And then, mid-song, he's likely to fall into a weird rhythmic lock-step.

It's fascinating stuff and catchy as hell. A great album.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Kelly Jones should be whooping with childish glee, April 26, 2003

By	Stanley Beaker (Beachy Head, England) - See all my reviews

If it's true about stereophonical Kelly Jones bizarrely claiming Dylan's vitriolic `Positively 4th Street' as his all-time favourite song (bizarre in-part because it's minor Dylan) then he should whooping with childish glee at Jim's wide array of barbed lyrical put-downs on `Insignificance', O'Rourke's second `straight' solo album. "listening to you reminds me of a motor's endless drone/and how the deaf are so damn lucky" from `Memory Lame', "I've travelled round the world/why am I talking to you", from another.

That the album is being touted as a "southern-fried rock album" is confusing. It's Jim's rock album in the same way that Lifes Rich Pageant was REM's rock album; both labelled by their opening tracks. Only three songs rock and even then the lyrics are delivered in that familiar sardonic, unfazed manner, with the tunes themselves morphing restlessly into beatific rural melodies. The title track even appears like some High Llamas before it quickly tires of the comparison and shifts into something more exciting. The tag with this album is not the rock as such but the employment of a live band (Jeff Tweedy wouldn't really arrive on any album with "RAWK!" emblazoned on his shirt collar). Jim wanted the album fresher, more immediate. His previous album, the densely arranged cycling `Eureka', sounded like the result of several months alone, cocooned in a studio. But even though `Insignificance' is sparser, more simplistic, it's still exquisitely crafted. There are no loose jams....

And it's the craft that makes this album a wonder to behold. Those ever shifting melodies, the effortless jumps from `Cold Blooded Old Times' stylie two chord Velvet rock to brass inflected pastoral folk, the multitude of ideas on each song, each greedily cast aside for the next. These are the things Mr Jones should be paying greater attention to. The short length of the album may irk but it's all the more astonishing for the ground covered. The Stereophonics, after all their tedious and long-winded years of song, are still fumbling with the needle at the end of side one.

Nevertheless if these taut superlative thirty-odd minutes still leave you blissfully unaware of the perverse charms of Jim O'Rourke then you only need to look in baffled wonder at the brightly coloured sleeve. It features an octopus `entertaining' a Japanese man-baby.