This Perfect World, by Reedy Johnston

While I was relaxing earlier this week, I played my Spotify starting with the Semisonic EP “You’re Not Alone,” and let it deep search its way through music. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of the songs that were played were familiar to me, and on those cases where the songs weren’t familiar, often the artists were familiar, but there was one exception I listened to and wanted to explore deeper, and that was the song “Bad Reputation,” by Reedy Johnston, the first track on this album, and the only song of the artist’s that is known to any great degree, having a bit more than 7 million streams on Spotify, while only three other songs on the album (the next three songs, including the title track) have more than 100k streams, while the last song on the album has barely 50k. This is the only album of the artist’s that was popular at all and the track “Bad Reputation” was a minor hit on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking in the top 60 of the chart but not making the top 40. With this particular example, we have a nearly pure case of an artist being nearly entirely known by only one song that was hooky, adult alternative pop. Is the rest of the album worth getting to know? Let’s find out.

The album opens with “Bad Reputation,” which is a pretty compelling song that deserves to be better known, and one that reflects on the difficulties of love told with compelling detail and convincing yearning. “Elvie’s Tears” is a somewhat jangly and sympathetic song about a woman troubled by what seems like a deeply traumatic past, again told with detail and sincerity. “Can’t Sink This Town” is a troubling song about transactional and deeply unsatisfying intimacy, but the music and production are both pretty excellent. “This Perfect World” follows with haunting strings and a melancholy message about entanglement in dysfunctional relationships filled with guilt and regret. “Cold Again” follows with somewhat jazzy chords and gloomy ruminations about life in New York City. “Two Lovers Stop” has somewhat upbeat music (which is admittedly a nice change of pace) but even with the happy music the song is still dark and self-destructive about a doomed relationship. “Across The Avenue” slows it down again, with some very interesting instrumentation and production about someone wasting their life seeking a reluctant/absent/imaginary lover. It’s a compelling song, but definitely not a joyous one. “Gone Like The Water” is another gloomy song about New York City, this one where a man disappears in the city and leaves an unsatisfying family life that somehow sticks with him. “Dolores,” not coincidentally meaning sorrows, gives a compelling but unhappy story song about more unhappy people. “Evie’s Garden” alludes back to “Evie’s Tears” from earlier, and it’s a sad acoustic story song, which makes sense because it’s like the rest of this rather melancholy album in terms of its regretful, mournful mood. “Disappointed Man” is a beautiful song, but of course it’s sad, filled with gorgeous, aching music and lyrics about a man hiding himself from his guilt and regret from an unsympathetic world. The album then ends with “I Can Hear The Laughs,” unsurprisingly a gloomy song reflecting on ruin and self-destruction and self-loathing.

There is a lot to appreciate about this album. The album is consistently well-produced, the instrumentation is frequently gorgeous, and Freedy Johnston is a compelling songwriter with a taste for quirky and distinctive details and a pleasant voice. Each of the songs would certainly be a good addition to a moody 90’s mixtape such as the kind I made as a teen. Nevertheless, this album is a punishing listen straight through, not least because every single one of the songs is unhappy. This is an album singularly lacking in anything remotely approaching joy at all. The most upbeat songs on this album are also unsurprisingly the two that make the most sense as radio singles, “Bad Reputation,” which was a minor hit and features at least the deluded hope that the narrator’s beloved might love him back to make his titular disgrace and embarrassment easier to cope with and the suicide anthem “Two Lovers Stop” with its Romeo and Juliet-style relationship. This album is for people who listened to albums like the Gin Blossoms’ “New Miserable Experience” and said to themselves, “You know, this needs to be more even more miserable.” No doubt such people exist, but it is not a joyful existence. Neither is the 45-minute-long runtime of this album.