Jenny and Johnny

Jenny and Johnny

Jenny Lewis and Jonathon Rice

2010

That's right. I am almost on time with this one. The new, eponymous, album has been out and available for less than a week. Thanks to my aunt Kristin, and her sending me an iTunes card for my birthday, I made my first digital music purchase! Woo. It was easier than my GenX hangover soul had anticipated. I was rewarded with – a bit above average pop music.

Jonathon Rice is known as Jenny's boyfriend, and Jenny Lewis is known for her agnostic gospel music with band Rilo Kiley and her two solo albums. These 5 – 9 albums, depending how you count them, are never not brilliant. They also have really nice guitar layering, Jenny on rhythm guitar and singing, and some highly talented man (Mward or Blake Sennet, Elvis Costello) on melody guitar. Her vocals absolutely steal the show, and she's one of the few artists I want the entire discography for. Even Led Zeppelin made music I'm not hot on enough to keep em around.

At least I have hindsight with Zep, they've released all they're going to do (No, Robert Plant will not rejoin them, no, that drummer-son is no excuse). But Jenny is still producing a bunch. And this may be where we depart as worshipped and worshipper. I admit, I was expecting more of the same, if not, more of lovable stuff to sink my teeth into. Even her worst things on Under the Blacklight and Acid Tongue were fun and full and it only took me a couple listenings to get into. This whole album seems like that.

What made her music above average were shrewd lyrics and hypnotic vocals. The music, without a superior musician helping, is basic enough that even I can play it on the guitar. I thought at first this Johnny would be the next filler of that role, but he doesn't add much except to harmonize. The harmony is pretty good though. His voice is of a timber, or something else technical, that works beautifully, melts into Jenny's that you don't find with her other partners. It works. But it cuts the hypnotic power of Jenny's solo voice in half, reducing the vocals to just above average and vaguely interesting. Even then, if these two develop their singing relationship and they use real harmony, and not just singing the same thing at the same time, they could really have something.

The other side of Jenny I adore: lyricist. This woman is brutal with her beliefs and extended metaphors. She is not afraid to use death threats, impersonate teevangelists, hookers, and 15 year old hitch hikers. She is unaplogetic for breaking up with people, and doesn't whine when she, herself, is dumped. Not only is it rare, but her book of collected lyrics could very easily stand as a contemporary sort of Bible for the agnostic zeitgeist of GenXers like me and Millenials like the bulk of her fans.

And it's not all lost. Romanticizing Los Angeles in its dark and glittery glory is still on the plate, they have a song called Switchblade, and Big Wave is a critique on idiots who live on credit. Showing fun ironic and surprising choice chops, they chose David Hockney's painting A Bigger Splash for this socio-political almost protest song.

There is not too much a lack for emotional brutality: one of them doesnt “think two heads are better than one” and one of the two “will forgive you if [they] outlive you” and not a second before. There's even a lovely image of snake bite that shows up in at least half the songs, and then cemented on their homepage and myface page with a snake infinity symbol. Nice. I like this longer lasting show of thought consistency. Shows they aren't just screwing around and kinda dumb like various artists out there. You'll notice the big ones (Zep, Gaga) really know who they are and even if their sound changes, their singer/song writer personalities do not (hobbits, fame).

As good as that is, there is some preachyness here that didn't exist before. I cannot accept a bible thrust on me. Thus I like Church of England but not most Catholicism. So when the leader of my church says

“If you don't believe in history then take what you're given” I get a bit uneasy, but then I hear :“If you lose your fear of god, then you're an animal” and I'm a bit queasy. They're telling me I'm below them? Or is the animal metaphor a good thing? Are my leaders animals? Do they show their teeth to everyone? I... uh...

Whoever writes their publicity stuff (both Jenny and Johnny seem shy of publicity unless they're really performing) makes a serious note and devotes a paragraph to to pointing out this is NOT Rilo or Jenny Solo. It's a new creation and it's exactly what they want it to be: mainstreamish, popish.

I guess the important thing to note here is that Johnny is not just another man Jenny leans on to take her solo work to the next level, he's her boyfriend, and really, her equal in musical output quality. So, the album is called “I'm Having Fun Now” and maybe she is. Maybe this is more important for her. And that's a good thing. I like my prophets to enjoy what they're doing. Besides, I have to keep buying what she (and whoever, I hope she knows it doesn't matter to us) puts out since I don't yet know when it's going to truly start sucking.