Juno is a film which will almost surely ebb in its impact over time—its soundtrack, however, continues to crest. From that soundtrack, nothing was quite as memorable as “Anyone Else But You,” the off-key, off-kilter duet (with Kimya Dawson) for stringy-armed boys and wool-clad girls everywhere to sing to one another. Nerd wedding DJs, get ready.
Behind that and many of the other stellar songs is Adam Green, late of the buzz-worthy, anti-folk outfit from New York, The Moldy Peaches. Still decidedly off-kilter (but certainly not off-key, unless called for) Green’s fifth solo album on Rough Trade, Sixes & Sevens, is an ideal assembly of big, boastful (anti) folk, '50s rock and Motown, strutting songwriting, and crackling smart lyrics. The hardly 26-year-old Green offers a strangely sedate, ballad-esque critique of the Iraq War on “Getting Led,” a stirring party song or two, “Twee Dee Dee” and “Tropical Island,” and sundry others that pick up and break off at seemingly random points. Are many of the songs short of meaning? Yes, sometimes, but Green throws so much complex, intricate line assembly into his songs that however odd or vapid they might be, it’s at least obscured.
In the terms of songwriting, Green assembles a wicked, often three minute song package on Sixes & Sevens, and it’s ear-catching for sure, but the star can be his use of voice as instrument/song element. Sometimes he comes off as a sultry lounge singer, and others, pubescent basement jack. Often times, and most interestingly, he’s deliberately contradicting the listener’s expectations. On “Getting Led,” a song that is an all but withering indictment of American policies and the guilt of being duped into war, Green sounds more like a paramour than a protestor: good stuff, for sure, and certainly transcending expectations.
Where the album Sixes & Sevens might lose some steam, is that it feels like about six or seven different albums sort of all jammed into one. Green's variety of influences is played to the hilt: he trots out his Leonard Cohen songs, his Scott Walker songs, and his faux Tom Jones songs. After a while, it’s hard to say what are really, and truly, Adam Green songs. In the end, this comes across as a lot like one of Ween's albums—I'm struggling for something analogous, but try to see where I'm going—in that the creator of Sixes & Sevens is seemingly wrapped up in a state of constant mix tape-ology, or random making.
To enjoy, you have to be willing to follow their imagination. For simple creativity, Green's fabulous mind is hard to deny.
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