July for Kings, "Normal Life"

This post’s feature track, “Normal Life” by July for Kings, is one of several awesome tunes from their 2002 debut album, Swim.  But don’t just take my word for it.

The reviewer at allmusic.com declared July for Kings as Pearl Jam wannabes and Swim as “shallow”, “overly earnest” and “emotions by the numbers” awarding it a full star and a half and encouraging people to “dive in at their own risk”.

Oh, wait.  Crap.

One and a half stars out of five?  Wow. That’s like Spinal Tap Shark Sandwich territory.  I mean if Swim was a movie, we’re talking Bennifer’s Gigli.  Not even bad Adam Sandler, but Gigli. Damn.

Given this dramatic difference in opinion, one is left to conclude one of the following:

1. My musical taste blows.

2. Allmusic.com got it wrong.

As allmusic.com is one of the most popular sites of its kind, and MWMT is um, well, not, I accept that I have not earned the benefit of the doubt.  And while I am not willing to cop to my taste blowing (or sucking), I will certainly admit to it being out of tune with most. And unfortunately, not like in a cool, hip way, but rather in an obscure, mainstream sort of way.

As a decidedly white suburban kid growing up in the late 70’s and early 80’s, I enjoyed listening to Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 countdown every Sunday morning. But for me, it was all about the bottom 10.  My 45s collection was littered with Top 40 bottom feeders who don’t even rate spins on one hit wonder flashback weekends.

These “one glancing blow wonders” include:


• New England’s “Don't Ever Want to Lose Ya” (Peaked at #40) 
• Point Blank’s “Nicole” (#39) 
• Bourgeois Tagg’s “I Don’t Mind At All” (#38)
• David and David’s’ “Welcome to the Boomtown” (#37) 
• Rick Pinette and Oak’s “King of the Hill" (#36)
• Sneaker’s “More than Just the Two of Us” (#34) Yea, it's schmaltzy. But still.
• McGuinn Clark and Hillman’s “Don’t You Write Her Off Like That” (#33).

I always listened to the latter hours of the top 40 (they dragged it out for four hours!) hoping one of my bottom feeders had made an unlikely ascent to the upper echelons of the charts. But inevitably the truth was that my fave had plummeted off the chart (and usually straight into obscurity and album cut-out bins). 

But at least those artists had the thrill of hearing their names announced by Scooby Doo’s Shaggy (aka Casey Kasem). Plenty of my other faves in the day never got that far. These “near miss notables” include:
“That’s When I Think of You” hit #100 for a single week back in the early ‘80s, thus making 1927 the musical equivalent of the NFL’s Mr. Irrelevant.

To make things worse, I recall that the only band I ever liked back on the original Star Search went down in flames with like 1 and 3/4 stars. And I believe even my MWMT collaborator shook his head in dismay when I declared Scatterbrain’s “Don’t Call Me Dude” as my favorite song at one point in the early ‘90s (at least it compensates for the Sneaker track!).
So yes, I fully embrace the possibility that I am the problem. But a quick perusal of YouTube comments suggests that I am not alone in my appreciation of JFK’s “Normal Life”, so let’s not let the Allmusic.com reviewer off the hook quite yet.
Here is my central theorem: critics overvalue originality when it comes to music. That’s why I’m ripping off most of this post from a considerably more popular music blog.  
But seriously, an artist doesn’t always have to bring something revolutionary to the table musically or lyrically to create memorable music. Passion, musicianship and hooks can go a long way.
Yeah, one can look at July For Kings lyrics such as “I'll make the bed, you'll feed the cat. Could it really be as simple as that?” and make snarky cracks about Dick and Jane graduating from 4th grade storybooks to writing lyrics. But you can’t judge a book by its cover. Or a song by its lyric sheet.

Listen closer to “Normal Life” and I think you’ll hear an impassioned homage to midwestern simplicity from a guy returning back home to Ohio (from I’m guessing L.A.) with renewed perspective. And the bed making, cat feeding bit absolutely works. The allmusic.com dude heard simplistic. I hear simplicity. Back me up here, Hemingway.

But perhaps a much more succinct retort to the allmusic.com review is comments like these from YouTube:

“This is probably the greatest song ever.” 

“This songs makes me happy!” 

“Amen to this song.” 

“Joe Hedges (the lead singer) has the same name as me!” 

OK, maybe not so much that last one. But you get the idea.  A lot of people (shallow, over-earnest ones, I can only imagine) connect with this song.

Now, I’m not going to claim Swim is the greatest album ever. It’s a bit all over the place genre wise and reeks of producer/record label indecision. Several of the harder rocking tracks definitely fall flat.

But any album that produces a tune that remains in my favorites rotation for over a decae automatically gets 2 stars in my book. And this one’s got at least three or four.  So for me, Swim is a solid 3.5 stars. Maybe 3 stars, if I was in a cranky mood. But 1.5 stars? Criminal.

I know, it’s just one person’s opinion. But here’s the problem. If you’re learning about July for Kings for the first time from a big-time music site review and you see 1.5 stars, there’s no way in hell you’re giving them a chance. Game over.  

And one can make the argument that in our modern, mix tape world, where you can buy any track, the full album review concept is obsolete. I would argue that we need album reviews that look more like seismographs, rating each individual track as well as providing an overall average. Here is my humble Excel based prototype for July for King’s Swim.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not advocating abandoning the idea of purchasing (or recording) full albums. Some tracks belong alongside one another for all eternity.  Like July for King’s “Believe” and “Normal Life”. 
So dive in there. Then check out “Girlfriend”, “Black Car” and “Washed Away” from that same album to get a full sense of the 1.5 star experience.  

Then, assuming that your IQ has not been irreparably harmed such that you can still navigate a browser, check out later evolutions of the July for Kings sound with 2004's “One by One” and 2009's “Say it Now”. Better yet, go here, listen to both these CDs and then shell out a few bucks to download them. I particularly love "Houses Made of Stained Glass".

Then pick up bonus points for checking out the Joe Hedges’ solo tune (“Mitral Valve Prolapse”). This is an incredible tune.

As for me, I’m off to give Gigli another shot. Stay shallow, my friends.

PS:  Allmusic.com rocks. I go there all the time. Just don't believe everything you read :)
Photo: Jes Reynolds, Flickr (CC by-NC-SA 2.0)

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