Pure Comedy came out in April, and ever since I've been struggling to wrap my head around it. Pretentiousness, concept albums, long-winded singer-songwriters, me me me ... none of that stuff turns me off normally, but there's something about Father John Misty's third record that leaves me cold.
As a document of where he's at emotionally after his nervous-newlywed sophomore release I Love You, Honeybear, the resolutely melancholy Pure Comedy suggests ... well, I don't pretend to know a thing about the man's personal life, but I would argue that maybe things aren't going so well on the home front. (Or maybe that's just how I read "Leaving LA," which feels like a
farewell to Los Angeles as well as to the promise that it once held for an
artist and his artist wife.) Regardless, this album's big-swing approach to its major themes -- most of which I'm aligned with him spiritually on -- too often play out as declarations from a guy who sounds like he thinks he's the first guy to come up with them. Not only does the music keep declaring its cleverness, the lyricist does, too.
So why may Pure Comedy still make my Top 10? Because when I stop fighting with the album, when I just let it play in the background, the beauty and inventiveness keep sneaking up on me. "Oh, that's a really good song," I'll think. "And so is that one. And that little passage there sure is lovely." And so on. As a friend, Father John Misty would probably be exhausting. As a songwriter who's trying to find new ways to express old ideas, he never stops thinking, never stops trying a new angle, often finds the grace note that makes me reassess the whole endeavor.
