By Tim Wendt
What’s an indie pop artist to do after winning Britain’s most prestigious music award with his debut album? How about scoring a movie? Done. Hmm; how about growing facial hair and wearing a wooly ski cap? Done. Okay, how about just making another great album? Done. Badly Drawn Boy’s sophomore album, Have You Fed the Fish? is a melange of intriguing lyrics, catchy melodies and ever-changing moods. With 2000’s Hour of Bewilderbeast, Badly Drawn Boy (Manchester, England’s Damon Gough) earned widespread critical acclaim for his breakthrough album, which gave him the opportunity to provide the score to this year’s film About A Boy. Badly Drawn Boy has now created an album that is all things; equal parts joyful and melancholy, while also seamlessly mixing humor with sincerity.
The most striking thing about this album is its shifting melodic moods. Many of the songs flow into one another, but the overall versatility makes this album easy to listen to again and again. On “How?” the song starts with acoustic guitar and escalates into a pounding, quick-tempo electric, leaving enough time for a sweeping string arrangement. The pure, funky fun of “The Further I Slide” features spectacular use of horns, flute and keyboard. The aptly named “Centrepeace” is a peaceful yet somber instrumental that divides the album nicely, using a beautiful string arrangement reminiscent of the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon score.
The lyrics on Have You Fed The Fish? are equally clever, with stark changes within songs as well. The single “You Were Right,” following “I Was Wrong”, an enrapturing 70-second acoustic interlude, somehow combines a dream about turning down Madonna’s sexual advances with the deaths of great musicians such as Jeff Buckley, Kurt Cobain and John Lennon. With two intriguing albums so early in his career, it’s hard to imagine Badly Drawn Boy living a life of relative obscurity in the United States much longer, but I doubt he even wants the attention. Have You Fed The Fish?, according to Badly Drawn Boy, “is a reflection of real life versus the incongruous stupidity of the life I now live as a minor celebrity.” Okay, but why the silly album title? “Because it’s the question that gets asked the most at home,” says the artist. If more people hear the music of Badly Drawn Boy, however, they will most likely be asking record shops if they have his albums.
CARDINAL GRADE: A
