Peter Morén The Last Tycoon

[Quarterstick; 2008]

Styles: lukewarm chamber pop to sip your free trade coffee to
Others: Jason Mraz (no, really)

Peter Morén has already lost a large number of potential buyers of his solo debut, The Last Tycoon, and it all has to do with a simple tonal act. As Lauren Bacall put it in the Howard Hawks-helmed film classic To Have and Have Not: “You know how to whistle, don’t you Steve? You just put your lips together and... blow.”

Whistling certainly has its rightful place in the lexicon of popular culture (how else would The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air hail a cab?), but Peter Bjorn and John’s whistle-laden heavenly pop hit “Young Folks” may have been a tad too ubiquitous for the ADHD-afflicted children of the internet. Never mind the fact that Writer’s Block, the album from which the track came, was packed with juicy deep cuts -- or for that matter, the trio’s impressive back catalog, specifically the lovably scruffy Falling Out. Over-saturation produces irrational responses, to the point where anticipation for Morén’s debut was little more than passing interest.

In the case of the actual product, however, the tone-adept technocrats may have made the right choice. The Last Tycoon contains some of the most baffling stylistic choices put to record so far this year, beginning with the naked, no-frills production applied to the tepid tracks like Vaseline on a camera lens. Much of the record sounds thin and uneven – there’s no discernible fidelity established, which gives an amateurish sheen to the achoral “Reel To Real” and the overlong “This Is What I Came For” (note to Pete: don’t write a six-minute song if all you’re going to do is vamp over the same melody). Save for the record’s sole decent cut, “Social Competence,” there’s none of the deceptively simple and eclectic production found on Writer’s Block.

The startling sonic nudity of Tycoon exposes not only the severely dull melodies on display, but also brings to light the limitations of Morén’s croon that have previously gone unchecked. “Missing Link” is a show tune with nothing to show for itself, as the listener will undoubtedly cringe when Morén hits the bridge’s high notes, while the painfully forced falsetto that ends “I Don’t Gaze at the Sky For Long” closes out the record with a literal whimper.

When he’s given the chance to belt it out like the rock star he could be, Morén doesn’t do too badly, as on the aforementioned “Competence” and the way-too-wistful “Tell Me in Time.” However, convoluted lyrical clunkers such as “I wish you’d tell me in time/ I could have said something before/ If something’s not there anymore/ Tell me in time so I won’t be completely lost” (couldn’t there have been a more succinct way to say that?) paired with melodies that travel to the most predictable of places ultimately divert attention away from these diamonds in the rough. You know how to write great songs, don’t you, Peter? Instead, you put this album together, and... you blew it.

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