#50 The Late Great Daniel Johnston: Discovered Covered

Okay.. so I haven’t updated this in an inexcusably long time but I am back and can guarantee an update a week for at least the next year. The problem I had updating was I never knew what to write about and would stress about if it was interesting or not. Well I solved that because once a week I am going to be counting down my top 50 favorite albums! I will do this in conjunction with other posts, about new albums that come out or whatever, as the mood strikes but once a week I will guarantee a post with the next album. So lets kick it.

#50 The Late Great Daniel Johnston: Discovered Covered

Best Song: Living Life Eels vs Sun Shines Down On Me Guster

This album is a two disc cover album of Daniel Johnston (who is not dead despite what the name would have you believe). One disc is the original Johnston versions and the other is for the covers. Now for this one I am only going to talk about the covers as quite a few of the originals are from an album further up the list.

And the covers are amazing and I would suggest anyone who doesn’t see the big deal about Daniel Johnston get this album. Out of all the songs only two aren’t very good. Teenage Club and Jed Fair (of Half Japanese) take on “My Life is Starting Over Now” and it is just a disoriented pretentious mess like everything fair does. The other one is Calvin Johnston on “Sorry Entertainer”. He takes Daniels greatest disjointed rocker and makes it very droning and boring.

But those are my only complaints as the rest of the album runs from good to brilliant. Now I am not going to name check all the songs but there are four specific ones that are worth noting above all the rest. The first is the absolute best; Eels loving cover of Living Life. One of Johnston’s greatest that I would love to see redone by the man himself as the original is so damaged that it is almost unlistenable. But E (I love your music man but ‘E’, really?) knows the beauty that lies behind the crackling tape and brings it to the forefront along with his longing hopeful vocals that, for the first time on an Eels song, don’t always sound like he is on the verge of tears. And right as the song ends we get treated to another highlight from TV on the Radio. Their versions of Walking the Cow is very true to the original except for the great use of feedback that is very Pavement like which only adds to the mystery of the song that has always made me feel confused in a good way.

Now let us skip down to the last two songs. First we have Guster on The Sun Shines Down On Me. Guster doesn’t know how to not be perfect, which is actually the downfall of a lot of their albums for me. I get bored as I feel like I am listening to a mathematically precise album that does very little to tug at the heart. Well that doesn’t happen here and I am willing to say that this cover is the best song Guster has ever done. The way they let the dissonance take over about halfway through is brilliant and they absolutely NAIL the most heartbreakingly hopeful line Johnston had ever written, “I’m walking down that empty road/ It ain’t empty now because I’m on it”. After this we come to the weirdest and most difficult to assimilate song on the album, but Tom Waits fans must have it. Wait’s take on King Kong is simply fantastic. The way he takes the acapella original and infuses it with primal roars and mouth percussion later joined by jazzy bass and sparse guitar licks….well just listen it is something else. In fact while all the bands stamp themselves on the songs they do Waits is the only one to do so while taking all the Daniel Johnston out of it.

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.