Pete Yorn - Pete Yorn

Pete Yorn

Pete Yorn
Vagrant Records.

SCQ Rating: 78%

“I think I’ve never been in love,” Pete Yorn confesses on ‘Stronger Than’, but it’s a sentiment his fans have long taken for granted. Over his previous four non-Johansson-ized LPs, Yorn's songbook has largely spoken of love in the pretense of its demise - of its shrugging, incapable squandering. And maybe that’s why 2009’s Back and Fourth soured many fans; its full-length scope of being a lonely dude, with shiny but lethargic production by Mike Mogis, lacked the thick-skinned tempos that once gave Yorn’s emptiness some nomadic purpose.

That punch has thankfully been restored on Pete Yorn, a rag-tag assemblage of eleven cuts Yorn and Frank Black (yes, of the Pixies) punched out over five days in Nowhere, Midwest America. From the searing guitar and pounding, no-frills drums of ‘Precious Stone’, Black’s raw production evokes the immediacy of hearing a garage-band in the flesh; the primitive relationship between guitar and percussion standing naked at the forefront of the mix. And Yorn, despite a nagging fever that permeated the majority of recording, revels in the grain of his fractured voice-box, embracing tuneless emoting on the cathartic crest of ‘Sans Fear’ and seething throughout ‘Paradise Cove I’.

To a Yorn-uninformed listener, this self-titled affair might sound like a 90s alt-rock retread – and, in the case of the power-chord driven ‘Always’, it sadly is – but Pete’s taking chances here. Shedding the thick production that protected him for bare-boned testosterone didn’t sound like a winning strategy for the songwriter who made his name with a layered, folky approach, but Yorn’s vocal risks empower some otherwise flimsy tracks (‘Badman’) into a fist-pumping good time. Yorn may not have learned a whole lot about love, but he’s ready to fight for it again. And Pete Yorn is a good fight, indeed.

21. Musicforthemorningafter – Pete Yorn (2001)

Pete Yorn has been one of my most consistent artists of the decade because he doesn’t change much and his songs are always engaging. If he’s garnered the reputation of being a sentimental chick-rock magnet, it’s on the coattail of two or three tracks which, yes, I still think are awesome. Even the more reserved tracks on his spellbinding debut Musicforthemorningafter have a Springsteen-esque momentum behind them ('Sense', 'On Your Side'), making them easily flexible between drinking days and lonely nights. And while Day I Forgot could stand in this position as my equal favourite, Musicforthemorningafter is his rightful breakthrough that’ll outlive all the Pete Yorn haters.

Back and Fourth - Pete Yorn

Back and Fourth

Pete Yorn
Columbia Records.

SCQ Rating: 85%

As a thorough Pete Yorn fan, I’ve always been slightly irked by the knowledge that so many of his songs – many of which, my favourites – were written from the perspective of someone else. Perhaps I’ve grown accustomed to my self-obsessed songwriters of choice but it was difficult to understand someone’s interest in being a musician if they honest-to-god had nothing personal to say. Now I’m accepting of some wayward inspiration, like how 2006’s ‘How Do You Go On’ was written with his 90 year-old grandfather in mind, but it’s hard to pretend I didn’t once read an interview in which Yorn discussed how ‘Sense’ (my favourite off MusicForTheMorningAfter) was written to empathize with Hailey Joel Osmond’s character in The Sixth Sense. I know, deep down inside, I still haven’t made peace with that. So I was thrilled to read that Back and Fourth featured lyrics close to Yorn’s heart, written during a difficult period of relationship anxiety and self-imposed isolation. The results, first heard on single ‘Don’t Wanna Cry’, are a turning-point for a somewhat middling career, displaying the only perspective I want to hear on a Pete Yorn record – his.

What makes ‘Don’t Wanna Cry’ (and Back and Fourth as a whole) a success involves far more than a simple shift in songwriting perspective. Yorn made decisions: he abandoned his studio digs in Los Angeles for the rural plains of Omaha, Nebraska and enlisted producer Mike Mogis. As much as I kinda blamed Mogis for Cassadaga’s blatant overproduction, I was relieved to hear the album would be unified by one producer (as opposed to the FIVE who jumbled up Nightcrawler). With Mogis, who provides a breadth of instrumental wisdom, and a studio band in tow, Back and Fourth is the first Yorn record in which Yorn doesn’t play just about everything. The difference is unmistakable, particularly on ‘Four Years’, as haunting piano notes creep about a tragic narrative, and ‘Close’, where cautiously employed strings compliment Yorn’s sweetest track since ‘Crystal Village’. Each decision made – the change in scenery, in musicians, in songwriting and production – make this the artistic statement I feared impossible, one so cohesive it makes his “morning, day and night” trilogy seem positively coincidental by comparison.

What works so well here can be attributed to what went so wrong on Nightcrawler, a record that was both overproduced and undercooked, polished up and sloppy. Songs like ‘Vampyre’ and ‘Maybe You’re Right’ were undernourished while older, previously released tracks (one from the first Spiderman soundtrack, the other a Warren Zevon cover) were inexplicably tossed in. Some light was shed on this period in a recent interview, where Yorn reflected critically, insisting he had some “rockstar” tendencies he needed to grow out of. Whatever demons he needed to exorcise, Yorn sounds more dedicated to a sound than ever before; from the breezy escape of ‘Paradise Cove’ to the meditative loneliness of ‘Thinking of You’, Back and Fourth encompasses an acoustic plateau of scarred hearts, dusty memories and, eventually, some emotional redemption. Thematically, these feelings either show progress or withdraw. ‘Country’ reflects on the carefree, endless drives of a blossoming love, ‘Social Development Dance’ breaks it down to empty picture frames. Back and forth, indeed.

“You know I’d never lost before,” Yorn repeats at one point, and it’s a line that resonates like a riddle across his discography. Most critics would insist Yorn lost with Day I Forgot, a sophomore panned by all but his true fans. Others would claim Nightcrawler sealed his career with a public indifference, ensuring his early promise would never reemerge. As someone who enjoys all of Yorn’s work, I can’t deny that I’ll miss Yorn’s “rockstar” side, the persona that wrote ‘For Us’ and ‘Policies’… but I wouldn’t trade anything off this record (well, maybe 'Shotgun'...). However Yorn truly lost, the occasion clearly bolstered him with renewed energy, encouraging him to take risks beyond his control and seek inspiration from within. For these distinctions, Back and Fourth is easily Yorn’s darkest album, mourning the past as often as Yorn tries to deny it. For my money, it’s also his most affecting.

Day I Forgot - Pete Yorn (SCQ Spring 2008)

Day I Forgot

Pete Yorn
Columbia Records.

SCQ Rating: 86%

In April of 2003, I should’ve been studying. That would’ve made a lot of sense, given that my schedule included several essay exams scattered over the coming two weeks. Instead, I stood in a London-area HMV with a gift certificate in hand, completely at odds over what to buy. Sure, I was carrying a copy of the newly released Pete Yorn album around with me, but truthfully, I was looking for something different. After a few distractions (including my first impressionable listen to Cat Power), I gave up and bought Day I Forgot. Despite his first album being a big deal for me a year earlier, I viewed this purchase as a silver medal to my own indecision.

From the opening field-recording demo that leaves us hanging before the guitars of ‘Come Back Home’ crash in, I instinctively dropped all presumptions about what this record should be. His sound hadn’t changed so much as focused; the DIY ethic was still at work, but where Music for the Morning After stretched its wings over several styles, Day I Forgot is singular in its forthright desire to rock. The drums are decidedly heavier, giving would-be ballad ‘Crystal Village’ a defiant edge. Even the guitars are beefier, cutting deep into ‘Long Way Down’ or blowing a riff out of the water as ‘Carlos’ does. Much of the reason critics merely shrugged at Day I Forgot can be traced to this straight-forward guitar rock, which disappointed those who treated Yorn like the next big thing, but few can argue that Yorn pulls it off convincingly.

We had two weeks left on the lease of our decrepit student flophouse, and between finals and unresolved summer plans, my housemates and I could feel the changing of the guard. Like how the spring rain melts weeks-worth of filthy snow down the gutters, this house would soon be filled with a new group of wide-eyed students to deflower. In many ways, we were preparing to say goodbye for another few months, and given how quickly things change amid a group of young men and women, I was aware things couldn’t stay the same for long. As several songs from Day I Forgot began to cling to my brain, London underwent an unseasonably warm current that bathed our last days in a summer’s humidity. The blankets of our make-shift projector room were torn down, revealing a great living room we’d wasted, and our windows were left open to breathe at night. Our study days became routinely interrupted by water-gun battles in the stairwell or backyard procrastinating. A song as seemingly ridiculous as ‘Burrito’ fit right in, its power chords drowning Yorn’s reminiscing from the window-perched speaker. The kitchen mentioned in ‘All At Once’ will always be our kitchen in that house.

A night after we pulled the couches out onto the front lawn, bought bottles of wine, and drank into the early hours, I woke up to write my anthropology exam. It was the end of April and my last exam, so I left early to ensure I could pace my walk and enjoy the green grass of campus. And as had been the case for the past two weeks, I woke up with one of Yorn’s new songs in my head; in this case, ‘Man in Uniform’, which I wordlessly sang to myself as I considered how dead I was about to be. The exam was a write-off – I could’ve been in a different class the whole time – and Yorn’s melody followed me home for one last day in London.

With its clean instrumentation and romantically-restless songs (who could ignore ‘Turn of the Century’?), Day I Forgot is a spring-time album that preludes those approaching summer nights. In a tight competition, it is also my favourite Pete Yorn album.

Nightcrawler - Pete Yorn

Nightcrawler

Pete Yorn
Universal Records


SCQ Rating: 79%

Anyone who read a rock magazine in the winter of 2001 might remember Pete Yorn. He was declared an ‘Artist to Watch’ by Rollingstone, who gave his debut ‘Musicforthemorningafter’ a four star review. He was the newest prodigy; a drummer who attained a major label contract during the last days of the old way: by performing a song before wealthy executives who by now are likely unemployed. So yes… a lot happened between 2001 and the release of Nightcrawler; the least of which likely being Yorn’s 2003 follow-up, Day I Forgot. The record displayed less variety than his ambitious debut, and perhaps as a knee-jerk response to the sophomore’s title, everyone forgot about Pete Yorn.

Three and a half years later, ‘Nightcrawler’ takes up ‘MFTMA’s confidence and delivers a collection of pop, country, semi-electronic and straight-up meat and potatoes rock. His flashiest record to date, ‘Nightcrawler’’s heavy production allows Yorn to take more risks than his first two albums combined. While notoriously difficult producer Micheal Beinhorn proves to be a trusted ally in the Yorn camp, adding his Eno-approved sheen for some new-wave electronic flourishes, it’s a polish that doesn’t come off entirely spot-free. Years in production and with no less than five producers in tow, some tunes (especially ‘Alive’ and the Warren Zevon cover ‘Splendid Isolation’) feel sonically out of place against the Beinhorn sessions, which accumulates half of the album material.

Having heard many of the B-Sides, I can’t help but daydream about how Nightcrawler would’ve sounded had it consisted exclusively of Yorn’s work with Beinhorn. Their dark pop explorations, from grumbling guitar and looming synth undertones on ‘Vampyre’ and ‘Same Thing’, could’ve unified this record into a very interesting statement.

Even though Yorn seems to have shied away from alienating anyone by recycling some old ideas, ‘Nightcrawler’ does not suffer from it. ‘For Us’ may be his best radio-ready single since ‘Crystal Village’, but any number of these cuts could’ve contended for chart status. From the Dixie Chick-backed romance of ‘The Man’ to the shoegaze-borrowed ‘How Do You Go On’, Nightcrawler (and his subsequent year and a half tour promoting it) shows that Pete Yorn isn’t content to be forgotten just yet.