The album cover, possibly where my initial impressions began
Imelda May and I got off to a bad start together. Listening to the first track on May’s new album, ‘Mayhem,’ threw a wrench into our budding relationship. What came to my desk with the promise of sultry, bluesy rockabilly instantaneously morphed into images of wacky 80s movie montages during “Pulling the Rug,” the album’s opener. As I let the song linger, my mind imagined a housewife dancing around her apartment with headphones while vacuuming. It was rockabilly by way of safe pop and it didn’t feel right.
As I audibly sighed at the task of trudging through the rest of the album, I scanned through the track names, stopping my heart in the process. Sitting there at number fourteen, the words ‘Tainted Love’ drove the fear of god into me, but like Pandora’s Box, I was compelled throw it open to the horrors that lay inside. Tossing aside my regular habit of giving an entire album a few listens before skipping around, I immediately jumped to this assumed travesty.
I was pleasantly surprised. While I certainly wondered why the world needed an up-tempo, rockabilly version of the Soft Cell classic, I didn’t particularly dislike May’s version of it. Surely, It leaned more towards “great cover song to play during a movie to make hipsters happy” than “great cover I’ll cherish,” but it was still FUN.
I'd almost climbed out the bathroom window on our date, but I couldn't leave the poor girl just sitting there alone in the restaurant
It was then that I realized I hadn’t really giving Imelda May a fair shake. I’d come in with preconceived notions and ideas, and hadn’t given her the benefit of the doubt. I called her back, we arranged for a second date, and we both promised to start from the top again like nothing bad had ever happened.
I began finding things I liked about the Irish-born May. The second track, “Psycho,” comes from a fun world where Karen-O grew up in Corpus Christi, Texas and hung out with the Reverend Horton Heat. Mayhem was slowly building a world in my head, full of smoky concert halls, upright basses, tattooed girls in poodle skirts, guys with “My Name is Pablo” gas station shirts, cigarettes rolled in tee-shirt sleeves, and slicked back hair. I hadn’t really travelled in those kind of circles since the ska/rockabilly/horns boom in the late 90s, but the music was unearthing memories of how fun it’d all been (minus an ex’s attempt to force swing dancing upon me).
I was now on board with Mayhem, though the gear shifts were sometimes sudden, leading to a sonic rollercoaster experience. May’s mix of Irish balladry by way of the ‘Cowboy Junkies’ on ‘Kentish Town Waltz’ came out of nowhere after the poppy jaunt and album’s namesake song ‘Mayhem ,’ but it was another track to reinforce my growing love for May’s voice. I can’t fault a woman for throwing some curveballs in there to keep me honest.
On Mayhem, you either going to accept the universe that May’s constructed or you’ll walk on. If the world of rockabilly, by way of a sexy, bluesy songstress with a precise and on-point band backing her conjures up images of wild nights in swank clubs of yesterday, the album will give you a legitimate hop to your step (or vacuuming day), as you dream of a bygone era you never actually lived through.
Not sure how long the album will remain in my life, but I'm sold on catching May live
Unfortunately, if you’re not caught up in that magic, you’re going to get frustrated quickly. Mayhem rocks, but it’s sometimes too note-perfect for a genre full of debauchery. The best songs on the album are the ones that aren’t trying to conform to something, though it sometimes leads to a wild mix of styles, from rockabilly, blues, country, pop, to Irish ballads. May’s talented enough where she could release solid albums in any of those genres of music, but I look forward to an album where she pulls it all together a bit tighter. Still, if she comes to my town, I’m completely on board with catching this sexy, brunette with her bleach blonde swirl in a live setting, jumping headfirst into her world for our third date.
Odds, Ends, Musings, and Contemplations 