{"id":16843,"date":"2021-10-11T05:00:50","date_gmt":"2021-10-11T05:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/?p=16843"},"modified":"2021-10-09T19:08:11","modified_gmt":"2021-10-09T19:08:11","slug":"jesse-malin-sad-and-beautiful-world-wicked-cool-records","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/?p=16843","title":{"rendered":"Jesse Malin – ‘Sad And Beautiful World’ (Wicked Cool Records)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Written and recorded during the lost year of 2020, through times of fear, anxiety and isolation, to a background of sirens, street protests and impending doom, \u2018Sad And Beautiful World\u2019 is Jesse Malin\u2019s 9th<\/sup> studio album. A follow up to the 2019 critically acclaimed album \u2018Sunset Kids\u2019, this 17-track double album was recorded sporadically by Jesse in his native New York at Flux Studios, with his touring band of 10 plus years, in-between weekly livestream shows from The Bowery.<\/p>\n

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\u2018Sad And Beautiful World\u2019 is a double album spilt into two halves. First, we have the more mellow \u2018roots rock\u2019 of disc\/record 1, followed by the slightly more upbeat \u2018radical\u2019 disc\/record 2. Jesse is a troubadour who sings songs and tells stories about what he knows and what he experiences, and this album is not so much a Covid record, as an observation of feelings, fears and searching for redemption. Overall, it comes across as a record filled with hope in troubled times.<\/p>\n

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From the laid-back Americana of opener \u2018Greener Pastures\u2019 to the closing celebratory and euphoric \u2018Saint Christopher\u2019, out illustrious host takes us on a journey, a trip through his mind if you will.<\/p>\n

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To be honest the themes of the two records blur into one with not much to distinguish between roots and radical, and while this whole double album would fit snugly on one CD (like record companies insisted sometime in the 90\u2019s), Jesse is old school and releases albums like his heroes, so we\u2019ll go with the double album format. The single \u2018State Of The Art\u2019 for example is as upbeat as you like, it hits like a statement of intent, from that piano intro to the killer, familiar pop melody that builds to a classic Malin chorus, it’s up there with Billy Joel and Springsteen as far as I’m concerned, and don\u2019t take that statement lightly.<\/p>\n

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If you’re a fan, you will probably be aware of several of these tunes already, as there have been quite a few singles in the past 12 months. From the retrospective \u2018The Way We Used To Roll\u2019 to the Lou Reed groove of \u2018Backstabbers\u2019, onto the heartfelt, rootsy balladry of \u2018Tall Black Horses\u2019, they all showcase the diversity and depth of a singer\/songwriter at the top of his game.<\/p>\n

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For me, there were two songs that stood out from the crowd in the lead-up to the release, and after a dozen play-throughs of this album they still come out trumps. \u2018Todd Youth\u2019 is a gloriously heartfelt tribute to a fallen friend, featuring pumping NYC street bass, handclaps, and HR from Bad Brains. The juxtaposition of sad subject matter and an upbeat, radio-friendly melody makes for a tune that imbeds itself deep in the soul. Jesse also pays tribute to another fallen hero\/influence by covering Tom Petty\u2019s \u2018Crawling Back To You\u2019, a lesser-known but highly sentimental trip from his 1994 solo album \u2018Wildflowers\u2019. The bare-bones recording with acoustics, piano, and that unmistakable Malin NY drawl, its melancholic, starkly beautiful, and as much an album highlight here as the original was in its initial release.<\/p>\n

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Come to think of it, the ghost of Tom Petty rears his head throughout \u2018Sad And Beautiful World\u2019. The country twang and heartfelt feel of \u2018Lost Forever\u2019 is as Tom Petty as you can get. But there’s also nods to another icon David Bowie in his 80\u2019s heyday on the likes of \u2018Before You Go\u2019 and \u2018A Little Death\u2019. Sometimes it’s just in the bassline or the way he phrases certain things, just listen and you’ll hear it, trust me.<\/p>\n

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For me, \u2018Sad And Beautiful World\u2019 harks back to Jesse\u2019s debut album \u2018The Fine Art Of Self Destruction\u2019 that came out nearly 20 years ago. The mark of a great songwriter is the ability to take you on a lyrical and melodic journey, and the fact that Jesse still has the power to create emotional works of art filled with hope, optimism and heartbreak in equal measures is a testament to his years on the road and his ability to express and keep it real. An essential purchase for all you rastas, as Jesse would say.<\/p>\n

Buy here<\/a><\/p>\n

Author: Ben Hughes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written and recorded during the lost year of 2020, through times of fear, anxiety and isolation, to a background of sirens, street protests and impending doom, \u2018Sad And Beautiful World\u2019 is Jesse Malin\u2019s 9th studio album. A follow up to the 2019 critically acclaimed album \u2018Sunset Kids\u2019, this 17-track double album was recorded sporadically by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16844,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[726,156,272],"class_list":["post-16843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review","tag-ben-hughes","tag-jesse-malin","tag-wicked-cool-records","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16843"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16845,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16843\/revisions\/16845"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}