After MP4 predictably failed to make a commercial splash, Michael Penn went on his biggest hiatus yet — five years — before releasing Mr. Hollywood, Jr. 1947 in 2005. This was the first of Penn’s albums that struck me off the bat as a disappointment. Not because of the songs, which are up to his usual standards, but because after seven years he delivered an album with a great big hole in its middle — a four-song stretch consisting of a couple of low-key instrumentals and two tracks of ambient noise and transistor radio feedback.
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Song of the Day #441: ‘Bucket Brigade’ – Michael Penn
Michael Penn waited only three years to put out his fourth album, 2000’s MP4 (Days Since a Lost Time Accident). And I hate to be redundant, but it’s another winner along the same lines of the three winners before it.
If there’s a criticism to be made of Penn, I suppose it would be that he doesn’t cover much new ground. He’s been crafting the same brand of smart pop music for 20 years now. But when the results are this good, I find it hard to paint that as a negative.
Song of the Day #440: ‘Out of My Hands’ – Michael Penn
The circumstances surrounding my first two Michael Penn albums — a very timely and special gift on the one hand, and the soundtrack to a key period of my life on the other — pretty much solidified me as a fan for life. So it was with great anticipation that I purchased Penn’s third album, Resigned, in 1997.
Again, he didn’t disappoint. I’ve already called Free-For-All his best album and pointed out that March is right up there with it. Well, Resigned is a challenger to that throne as well. In fact, it would probably be the hands-down winner if I had the sort of positive connotations with it that I do for the other two albums.
Song of the Day #439: ‘Strange Season’ – Michael Penn
Michael Penn waited three years to release his next album, 1992’s Free-For-All, and safely avoided the sophomore slump. On the contrary, I rank this as his best album yet.
Starting with the haunting acoustic ‘Long Way Down (Look What the Cat Drug In)’ and weaving through a string of metaphor-rich songs about love and loss, Free-For-All is a more potent and mature album than March. It’s also better produced, boasting an organic quality that’s lacking on his more polished debut.
Zombieland
In the past week, I’ve seen two Jesse Eisenberg movies, one called Adventureland and one called Zombieland. I’m sensing a pattern here. Next he should try something in the middle of the alphabet… Neverland, maybe.
In the course of that week, Eisenberg has quickly become one of my favorite young actors. I don’t know how much of a range he has but like Michael Cera, to whom he is constantly (and understandably) compared, the comic sweet spot he hits is perfectly on target.
Columbus, Eisenberg’s character in Zombieland, is a more neurotic version of Adventureland‘s James. Isolated from human contact, he spends most of his time playing video games. Which turns out the be the perfect situation for somebody hoping to survive the zombie apocalypse.
