Butch Walker’s latest album was, according to the liner notes, “written and recorded in 5 days at RubyRed Productions in Santa Monica, CA.” I’m not surprised. Not because the album is rushed and sloppy, but because it’s really good — but in a breezy, effortless way that I’ve come to associate with the artist.
This time around, Walker calls himself and his backing band Butch Walker and the Black Widows, and he calls the album “I Liked You Better When You Had No Heart.” But fans will probably just end up calling it “Butch’s new album” until the next one comes out, and then it’ll become “Butch’s 2010 album.”
All of Walker’s discs, starting with his breakthrough “Hey Album!” under the Marvelous 3 name in 1999, have a “write-it-and-record-it” feel that is easy to listen to. And, I’ve always assumed, easy for Walker to write. I don’t know much about his background, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that his musical talent comes not so much from classes and studying, but more from natural talent and learning on the job.
Although I don’t know the details of his formative years, Butch seems like an old friend to me. And locations — Cartersville — and characters — Marie, who has sex for free (but for 10 bucks an hour she’ll listen to me) that pop up in his songs are comfortably familiar. Even his power-pop hooks seem instantly familiar, even though they are never exact rip-offs of previous chord combinations.
The Atlanta-area native has found more commercial success by writing tunes for other artists: pop singer Avril Lavigne, ’80s rocker Tommy Lee and — perhaps most famously — country star Taylor Swift (the ubiquitous “You Belong with Me”; Walker’s version is included as a bonus download with this album). Even if you’ve never heard of Walker (which, sadly, is a situation I run into often, even among serious music fans), you’ve probably liked a song he wrote.
But kind of like how Philip K. Dick found commercial success with sci-fi but did his best work in his under-published real-world novels, Walker is best when he’s recording his own work.
That work is separated into catchy power-pop tunes and emotional ballads, and he’s always been better at the first category, although his efforts in the second category aren’t painful to listen to by any means.
On this new album, the most obvious hit (I still think in terms of “radio-friendly hits” even though radio has made it clear that it will always ignore Walker’s solo work) is “Pretty Melody,” which makes nice use of ’60s-pop-style bass drums on the chorus. As in: “You’re such a pretty melody” — Ba-Bum — “I’m such a tattooed tragedy …” The bass drum combines deliciously with Walker’s voice, which effectively conveys his lyrics’ emotions.
But opening track “Trash Day” has really grown on me in my first month of owning this album. Walker sings “Trash day in Beverly Hills …,” tells a little story about the town, and follows with verses about “trash day in Nashville, Tennessee” and “trash day in Atlanta, GA.”
I said earlier that I like Walker’s catchy rockers more than his softer ballads, and yet “Canadian Ten” really is a 10. I imagine it to be a wistful lament about a lustful ex who happened to be a Canuck.
Also, “Be Good Until Then” isn’t as skippable as you’d think it would be with a refrain like “And it’s OK to cry/If you feel it coming on.” Walker lists nice little moral tidbits like “Always know the road you’re riding on/Always know the words to your baby’s song/Try to make the most of Friday nights when they come.”
Walker’s absolute best albums in terms of flat-out, no-apologies, hair-metal-influenced pop tunes are his last two Marvelous 3 discs and his first solo album, “Left of Self-Centered” (2002). He dipped toward mediocrity with “Letters” (2004) and “The Rise and Fall of Butch Walker and the Let’s-Go-Out-Tonites” (2006).
Then he found a more layered sound, while also making his songwriting more personal, on “Sycamore Meadows” (2008), which was recorded in the wake of his house burning down. That’s tragic, but perhaps listeners were the creative beneficiaries.
“I Liked You Better When You Had No Heart” continues that last album’s diverse sound. “Don’t You Think Someone Should Take You Home,” for example, is basically a coffee-shop folk tune. This album isn’t quite as great as “Sycamore Meadows,” but I’ve had it spinning in my Jeep for a month, front to back and back to the front again.
It might not be Walker’s best album, but it sure is easy to like.