Daniel Johnston: Fun

Yesterday I talked a bout a horrible album by a band I usually like, so today I will talk about a great album by and artist that usually leaves me lukewarm.

Daniel Johnston’s early music was one part disjointed beauty, one part pointless noise, and zero parts production value. There was always some gem hidden beneath the cracking and amateurish echo but you really had to make yourself work to get it.

With his major-label debut Fun, Johnston shows how he can really shine. 90% disjointed beauty, 10% well planned noise, and the music is all clean and listenable. It opens with Love Wheel which is lulls you into the false sense that this is just going to be a standard Daniel Johnston album that is just a little bit cleaner. Of course as soon as Life in Vain starts you are proven wrong. An absolutely gorgeous song based around delightful acoustic strumming, soaring violins and carrying cellos and bass. It is the highlight of the album.

The next two songs ditch that “heavenly” feel to focus on some barebones music making. Crazy Love is beyond minimalist. It is Johnston singing with out accompaniment except for a piano cord every couple of seconds. Surprisingly the lack of actual melody is what makes this song so good. Catie is a strait up blues song sung with Johnston’s quivering vocals instead of a standard blues rasp. Not great but certainly interesting.

My favorite piece of noise on the album comes in the song Jelly Beans. It is about “a space orphan from Long Store6” who lost his third leg and wrote a song about soda and candy. It is brilliantly ridiculous. Equally strange is Circus Man which seems playful until it takes a dark turn at the end. All in all, Fun is an unpredictable bipolar album, and one of the few that actually works. Any album that can have both drama, and pointless fun in one song (Jelly Beans), shift from the noisy paranoia of Psycho Nightmare to the heartbreaking musing of Silly Love and not make it a jarring experience should be considered a classic.

This album belongs in the same category as Big Star’s Third/Sister Lovers and Skip Spence’s Oar. Disjointedly beautiful albums made by someone who is suffering from mental (or artistic) breakdowns that manage to hold it together long enough to make something worth your time. So while Daniel Johnston’s early and later work is very patchy I would suggest every one give Fun at least a try.