if man is five

In 1990 I found a CD called Creeping Up On Jesus by a band called The Big Dish in the dollar bin at a Coconuts Records & Tapes in Jacksonville, FL. It might be one of the most radio-friendly and -ignored records of all time. Now, this is not something I should admit to many people, and so it may seem strange to broadcast it over the World Wide Wave, but the fact is this blog has four readers, and none of them will be surprised: I fell head-over-heels for this record. I am not at all cool for having done so, but I did (I know someone else who was a fan, too, but I won't out him here).

What's so uncool about it? The record was as 1988-slick as it could possibly be, to the point of robbing the songs (some of them very good) of nearly every shred of the personality they might have had. The polish is pandering; it's everything that was soul-killing and beauty-obscuring and crowd-pleasing about its time. It is, in short, music for squares. If you don't believe me, go hear for yourself (and here's an even-more-over-produced example). Yet I'm saying, on the record here (sorry), that to me it was pure ear-candy, and it still is.

I bring it up because singer Steven Lindsay, whose voice is just slightly too pretty, has just released a solo album, Kite. It's better, but it's still a little too perfect, not really taking enough of a risk in any direction to please anybody. Well, except me; it pleases me greatly. Anyway, I just thought you should know that there's a cover of "Monkey Gone to Heaven" on the new rec with a pretty cool video which you can lookit via stereogum. Enjoy. Or not. I won't tell anyone if you don't want me to.