A wonderfully smooth album of blue-eyed neo-soul, full of retro '70s goodness with just a touch of electro - these tunes would sound great on an AM transistor radio. Hawthorne must have grown up on a steady diet of Daryl Hall and West Coast soul/pop. The word "derivative" is often used in a derogatory sense, but that's not the case here. Metacritic has it 74, which sounds about right. The only thing you really need to know is that this thing spent the past five months in my truck's CD player and has just now come inside the house so I can give it a CDP listen this morning.
Album chart Peaks
- US Billboard Top 200: #90
- Billboard R&B: #3
Tracks: "...it’s tantalisingly brief but never short of quality." At only 34 minutes, there's not a lot of wiggle room for filler. That said, I prefer the tracks Cosmic Love, Book of Broken Hearts, Breakfast in Bed, The Valley, and Get You Back. The only track that doesn't seem to fit is the Police-ish Fancy Clothes.
Personal Memory Associated with this CD: Purchased on a trip to Austin's Waterloo Records in late May of this year.
h/t to Herc of Herc's Hideaway for introducing me to the recordings of Mayer Hawthorne.
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