I’ve been waiting to write about Jay Reatard for awhile now: waiting for him to put out a for-realises solo album; waiting for the album to cool off slightly so as not to appear bandwagon-y; waiting to stumble upon the perfect way to describe him. Probably the easiest way to pin him down is to say he makes pop-punk that hipsters are allowed to like. I know that doesn’t sound real charitable, but give me a break: it’s bright-sounding and upbeat garage punk with pop sensibilities and song structure. I call that pop-punk. And thanks to Sum 41 and Good Charlotte and all that bunkum* we’re not allowed to use that term anymore. Screw that noise: Jay Reatard is some solid, legit pop-punk. If he heard me say that he’d throw bloody bikini bottoms at me, but I don’t even care.
The discography section of his Wikipedia page is a mile long, but he only signed to Matador last year. Last fall he put out a really good singles compilation, and he dropped an official solo album last month. It bothers me, by the way, that I have to make a taxonomic distinction between the two. Is it that an album is allowed to have non-singles (i.e., bad songs) and a singles comp is only good songs? That makes no sense to me, and it makes no sense here, as I haven’t heard him hit a sour note yet. It ain’t easy to bundle up a couple verses, some choruses, a bridge, and a breakdown, interwoven with a hooky earworm of a melody, and cram it all into two-and-a-half minutes, but that’s what he does, and he hits the mark every time.
Also, I’m not 100% how to pronounce his name. I’ve been going with “REE-tahrd.”** It feels natural and is slightly offensive, which I’m sure is what he must have been going for. If so, he’s following the Johnny Rotten / Sid Vicious / Steve Ignorant school of punk names. However, Indiefeed pronounces it “REE-yuh-TAHRD,” which is a nice way of weaseling out of saying the r-word. I’ve never heard Mr. Reatard pronounce his own name, so the jury’s still out.
Take three, they’re short:
Jay Reatard – “It Ain’t Gonna Save Me”
Jay Reatard – “Man of Steel”
Jay Reatard – “Painted Shut”
* Hogwash, baloney, rot, drivel, jive, tripe, bilge, bull, piffle, poppycock, twaddle…
** I couldn’t be bothered to write this in the IPA. Can you blame me?
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[...] you’ve heard of Jay at all, you probably liked his music and are as disappointed as I am. I blogged about him awhile back, and I figured I’d be bringing him up again sometime; shame it had to be like this. He was a [...]
Too Much Happiness » Jay Reatard Died Today added these pithy words on Jan 13 10 at 5:08 pm