Customer Reviews

Out Of My Way

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Peter Holsapple in more enlightened times would be lauded as a genius in his field: Power Pop. Except that this is here and now and he isn't. Pity about that. This was probably recorded on a shoe-string budget, not that you could tell. Here this musical magician lays out 11 tracks that cut straight to my soul. "I Am A Tree" is the stand out of many highlights. A simple basic plaintiff pop song that describes the experience of "white soul". He also kicks back and rocks to show his dB's roots in "I Been There". This guy has many dimensions! Buy this record to be the proud owner of these songs and to stick it to the corporate record money-men who are blind to the talents like this man and his kind! Long live Peter Holsapple!!

I got this CD 2 years ago based on the reviews. I'd never heard of Peter Holsapple and was pleasantly surprised to find out that the reviews were right. The music is great and the lyrics are even better. "Pretty, Damned, Smart" is a classic. I can't believe that no one has reviewed this CD before now. It's smart, fun and you can dance to it. What more do you need? Buy it!!

I can't say how much I've enjoyed this album over the past few weeks, mostly while driving to work in the morning. At first listen, I dismissed it; the songs seemed uneven and the production poor. It seemed to be a basement project done for fun, but without much interest for anyone other than the songwriter.

But, as another Amazon reviewer here mentions, it requires multiple listens. There are some great songs on here!

Some tunes, with better production values, would have fared well as dB's songs. Among the latter are the poppish-to-rockish "I Been There," "Away With Love," "Out Of My Way," and "Meet Me In the Middle." "Pretty, Damned, Smart" is an interesting acoustic number about a friend, and "Here And Now" is an anthemic concert finale if ever there was one. People familiar with Mr. Holsapple's self-deprecation (and those of us who share that quality ourselves) will take heart in "I am a tree," an affirmation about being true to oneself -- a thrown-down glove to the glib naysayers who are all too happy to criticize, but themselves are reluctant to face life's travails head-on.

Yes, there are some ponderous, dirge-like, sonic meanderingings here; and the production has a homade feel that, in some way that I can't quite put my finger on, lends an air of murkiness to the entire project. The production, in fact, sonically replicates the shadowy photo of Mr. Holsapple on the album cover design, where we can't quite see his face for the foreground. But lackluster production doesn't negate good songwriting. If Holsapple wasn't free to explore ponderous, dirge-like, sonic meanderingings on a low-pressure project like this, where could he? And who knows -- had he not felt that freedom, he might not have come up with the other excellent songs here.

All I know is, I wake up out of bed almost every morning singing one of the tunes from this CD. That tells me something.

This is one you definitely need to let play through a few times before coming to any conclusions about it. The first time I played it, I found the songs clumsy and thought it all sounded kind of lost. The second play-through, I started hearing some bits and pieces that seemed to click. On the third and fourth listens, I realized that there is a kind of off-kilter groove happening here, just the kind of left-of-center hookiness you would expect from a dB. There ARE some flat-out clunkers, but the best three or four songs make the whole worthwhile. The closer, "Here and Now," is a mid-tempo ballad whose chorus you will find yourself humming all day. The title track has a guitar line that is all Peter Holsapple- that kind of bubblegum-meets-art-pop thing that only he and Chris Stamey can do the way they do. "Away With Love" might be the catchiest song on the album. Is this as good as the dB's records? Well, no. But still, it's a fine record by one of the better songwriters of the past two decades. Just don't judge it after one try.