Yesterday I wrote about The Raconteurs' 3rd album Help Us Stranger and mused about how it's been interesting to watch perennial cult hero Brendan Benson become the co-frontman of a band with the far more famous Jack White. They just got their first #1 album, and it'd be hard to imagine Benson ever getting one of those as a solo artist, so this may be the height of his visibility. And even without a history of big chart hits, he has kind of become a well liked singles artist, with a string of songs like "Metarie" and "Tiny Spark" and "What I'm Looking For" and "Cold Hands (Warm Heart)" and "A Whole Lot Better" that have become pretty recognizable, whether from college radio play or from appearing in TV ads. So I thought it'd be fun to do a little tour through his albums.

Brendan Benson deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. I'm Blessed
2. Me Just Purely
3. Bird's Eye View
4. Sittin' Pretty
5. Emma J
6. I'm Easy
7. Life In The D
8. Eventually
9. Pleasure Seeker
10. Just Like Me
11. Let Me Roll It
12. Alternative To Love
13. Flesh And Bone
14. Get It Together
15. The Pledge
16. Gonowhere
17. Poised And Ready
18. Misery
19. What Kind Of World
20. The Light Of Day
21. It's Your Choice
22. Diamond
23. Half A Boy (And Half A Man)

Tracks 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 from One Mississippi (1996)
Tracks 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 from Lapalco (2002)
Track 11 from the Metarie EP (2003)
Tracks 12, 13, 14 and 15 from The Alternative To Love (2005)
Tracks 16, 17 and 18 from My Old, Familiar Friend (2009)
Tracks 19 and 20 from What Kind Of World (2012)
Tracks 21 and 22 from You Were Right (2013)
Track 23 from the "Half A Boy (And Half A Man)" single (2017)

Brendan Benson has had an odd career arc shared by some other journeyman bands like Spoon that started out in the waning days of the '90s alt-rock gold rush: an unsuccessful major label album early in his career, followed by a steady climb back towards finding a larger audience. I remember seeing positive reviews for Benson's sole Virgin Records release, 1996's One Mississippi, back when it was released, and hearing positive buzz from fans of Benson's co-writer Jason Falkner and his own short-lived power pop cult band Jellyfish. But the single "Crosseyed" kind of turned me off, so I made no effort to check out One Mississippi until it went out of print a few years later. Jeff Reguilon gave me a copy, and I was bowled over by the one-two punch of "Bird's Eye View" and "Sittin' Pretty" (I still don't like "Crosseyed" much).

Lapalco doesn't quite have the same livewire energy of One Mississippi, but it's a great album in its own right and I'm fine with it being regarded by many as his best. The Metarie EP also featured some nice reworks of songs from that album, as well as a less obvious McCartney salute in the form of a great cover of the Band On The Run deep cut "Let Me Roll It." The Alternative To Love probably has the biggest, most polished sound of any of his albums, it's really fun to hear Tchad Blake pull out all his bells and whistles for those songs or give Benson a perfect "Be My Baby" wall of sound for "The Pledge."

I sometimes gripe when Brendan Benson releases a new album that he's suffering from diminishing returns, but revisiting his last few albums, I don't think he ever really lost his knack for a hook, there's killer tunes all over them. I think it's more that he's got such a comfort zone that I'm never really surprised by anything on his records, everything sounds like it could've been written for one of his first couple albums. But I really enjoyed hearing a couple of other power pop heroes of mine, Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow of The Posies, play all over What Kind Of Love and You Were Right. I saw Benson's tour with the Posies in support of the former album and it was a great show, with Auer and Stringfellow in Benson's backing band and lending their killer harmonies to his songs. Benson hasn't released a solo album since 2013, but when I was going through his music on Spotify, I was pleasantly surprised to see that he released a great one-off single "Half A Boy (And Half A Man)," in 2017.

Previous playlists in the Deep Album Cuts series:
Vol. 1: Brandy
Vol. 2: Whitney Houston
Vol. 3: Madonna
Vol. 4: My Chemical Romance
Vol. 5: Brad Paisley
Vol. 6: George Jones
Vol. 7: The Doors
Vol. 8: Jay-Z
Vol. 9: Robin Thicke
Vol. 10: R. Kelly
Vol. 11: Fall Out Boy
Vol. 12: TLC
Vol. 13: Pink
Vol. 14: Queen
Vol. 15: Steely Dan
Vol. 16: Trick Daddy
Vol. 17: Paramore
Vol. 18: Elton John
Vol. 19: Missy Elliott
Vol. 20: Mariah Carey
Vol. 21: The Pretenders
Vol. 22: "Weird Al" Yankovic
Vol. 23: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Vol. 24: Foo Fighters
Vol. 25: Counting Crows
Vol. 26: T.I.
Vol. 27: Jackson Browne
Vol. 28: Usher
Vol. 29: Mary J. Blige
Vol. 30: The Black Crowes
Vol. 31: Ne-Yo
Vol. 32: Blink-182
Vol. 33: One Direction
Vol. 34: Kelly Clarkson
Vol. 35: The B-52's
Vol. 36: Ludacris
Vol. 37: They Might Be Giants
Vol. 38: T-Pain
Vol. 39: Snoop Dogg
Vol. 40: Ciara
Vol. 41: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Vol. 42: Dwight Yoakam
Vol. 43: Demi Lovato
Vol. 44: Prince
Vol. 45: Duran Duran
Vol. 46: Rihanna
Vol. 47: Janet Jackson
Vol. 48: Sara Bareilles
Vol. 49: Motley Crue
Vol. 50: The Who
Vol. 51: Coldplay
Vol. 52: Alicia Keys
Vol. 53: Stone Temple Pilots
Vol. 54: David Bowie
Vol. 55: The Eagles
Vol. 56: The Beatles
Vol. 57: Beyonce
Vol. 58: Beanie Sigel
Vol. 59: A Tribe Called Quest
Vol. 60: Cheap Trick
Vol. 61: Guns N' Roses
Vol. 62: The Posies
Vol. 63: The Time
Vol. 64: Gucci Mane
Vol. 65: Violent Femmes
Vol. 66: Red Hot Chili Peppers
Vol. 67: Maxwell
Vol. 68: Parliament-Funkadelic
Vol. 69: Chevelle
Vol. 70: Ray Parker Jr. and Raydio
Vol. 71: Fantasia
Vol. 72: Heart
Vol. 73: Pitbull
Vol. 74: Nas
Vol. 75: Monica
Vol. 76: The Cars
Vol. 77: 112
Vol. 78: 2Pac
Vol. 79: Nelly
Vol. 80: Meat Loaf
Vol. 81: AC/DC
Vol. 82: Bruce Springsteen
Vol. 83: Pearl Jam
Vol. 84: Green Day
Vol. 85: George Michael and Wham!
Vol. 86: New Edition
Vol. 87: Chuck Berry
Vol. 88: Electric Light Orchestra
Vol. 89: Chic
Vol. 90: Journey
Vol. 91: Yes
Vol. 92: Soundgarden
Vol. 93: The Allman Brothers Band
Vol. 94: Mobb Deep
Vol. 95: Linkin Park
Vol. 96: Shania Twain
Vol. 97: Squeeze
Vol. 98: Taylor Swift
Vol. 99: INXS
Vol. 100: Stevie Wonder
Vol. 101: The Cranberries
Vol. 102: Def Leppard
Vol. 103: Bon Jovi
Vol. 104: Dire Straits
Vol. 105: The Police
Vol. 106: Sloan
Vol. 107: Peter Gabriel
Vol. 108: Led Zeppelin
Vol. 109: Dave Matthews Band
Vol. 110: Nine Inch Nails
Vol. 111: Talking Heads
Vol. 112: Smashing Pumpkins
Vol. 113: System Of A Down
Vol. 114: Aretha Franklin
Vol. 115: Michael Jackson
Vol. 116: Alice In Chains
Vol. 117: Paul Simon
Vol. 118: Lil Wayne
Vol. 119: Nirvana
Vol. 120: Kix
Vol. 121: Phil Collins
Vol. 122: Elvis Costello & The Attractions
Vol. 123: Sonic Youth
Vol. 124: Bob Seger
Vol. 125: Radiohead
Vol. 126: Eric Church
Vol. 127: Neil Young
Vol. 128: Future
Vol. 129: Say Anything
Vol. 130: Maroon 5
Vol. 131: Kiss
Vol. 132: Dinosaur Jr.
Vol. 133: Stevie Nicks
Vol. 134: Talk Talk
Vol. 135: Ariana Grande
Vol. 136: Roxy Music
Vol. 137: The Cure
Vol. 138: 2 Chainz
Vol. 139: Kelis
Vol. 140: Ben Folds Five
Vol. 141: DJ Khaled
Vol. 142: Little Feat

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 02, 2019 at 2:26 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.