- Artist
- Richard Swift
- Label
- Polydor
- Release date
- 5th March 2007
- Genre
- Folk pop
Following the achievements of the Kaiser Chiefs and KT Tunstall - artists who toiled away until finally proving the record labels wrong with their enormous successes - comes Californian, heart-on-sleeve singer-songwriter Richard Swift. But where the two aforementioned British acts stormed enthusiastically into the limelight in a blaze of exuberant pop, Swift skulks moodily in on his major label debut sounding slightly embarrassed about performing and at times wryly scathing about the industry he's at last infiltrated.
Meld these sentiments to a sound that takes in American folk pop, music hall-style ragtime piano and an earthy voice of subtle menace and you have all the ingredients for a rather schizophrenic album. Indeed at times, Dressed Up For The Letdown sounds like three different records in one.
The bitter, disdainful Swift is the least likeable, providing the aural equivalent of seeing someone's dirty knicker pile. The funereal, piano-led dirge of Artist & Repertoire grates (despite the odd knowing line such as "Sorry Mr. Swift, but you're much too fat, and could I persuade you just to wear a cap?") while Kisses For The Misses is a jaunty whine that sounds like Starsailor if they still had a career.
Elsewhere, on PS It All Falls Down and The Songs Of National Freedom, Swift goes MOR via Randy Newman, Paul McCartney, Rufus Wainwright and Billy Joel - all circus rhythms, ironically boisterous piano and a cheeky theatricality that just does not sound genuine. The line "Everybody wants for me to see that most of what I know I can't believe but your love will keep my heart alive", as he bleats on Most Of What I Know, sounds like he's pitching this brand of earnest nonsense to American Idol auditionees.
Then there's Swift personality number three: dark, damaged, seedy even - and things get far more interesting. These shadier moments are a much better match for his battered vocals and are best seen on Buildings In America. Containing the beautiful line "I played your heart but I broke two strings", it glides uneasily along before the drums crash in and turn the song into a glorious Roy Orbison-style lament. The disconcerting Million Dollar Baby ("I wish I were dead most of the time... but I don't really mean it") and the eerie Dressed Up For The Letdown ("And I fear friends, this could be the last note") create similar atmospheres of both irresistible tension and strange beauty.
With those music industry gripes now out of his system, let's hope the discovery of something approaching an original sound on all too fleeting moments of this album will lead Swift to find his true self next time around.
