The Fine Art

Bob Geldofs new album, How to Compose Popular Songs That Will Sell, has all the things you would want and expect from Geldof: humor, the virtuoso musicianship of his now-longtime band, and musical and lyrical references to pop that has gone before (the Rats were quoting all over the place before sampling and mash-ups were evengleams in musics eye). It contains surprises too, not the least of which are the almost perfect poetry of many of the lyrics and the lush beauty of many of the songs. Its a satisfying piece of work that rewards repeated listenings.

The album starts with How I Roll and a seemingly gratuitous Lovin Spoonful reference that turns out to be correct for the mood of the song a song that rolls into an unreliable narrators summer meditation on the sweetness and frailty of late middle-age. It starts the listener on a roll through the seasons which will continue for the duration of the album.

Now that weve rolled, it must be time to rock. Blowfish is a guitars-up-to-eleven, vocals-mixed-way-back track with dummy lyrics (Geldof has said that he wrote proper lyrics for it, but ended up deciding it sounded better with the on-the-spot ones). It doesnt have to prove that it doesnt have to prove anything, so for a few moments it blurs into a movie soundtrack and back. Presumably, this song is one of the weird things that Geldof confesses to having inside his head in the next tune. What I said about perfect poetry doesnt apply here unless you count word salad.

Shes a Lover has an addictive beat similar to that of Scream in Vain on the previous album, but it sneaks up on you, then comes to a swirling low boil of guitar, organ, and electronic chirps that move through your chest and neck like a blender through mango or a thousand nanobot R2D2s serenading your bloodstream. They and he continue to work things over, on some astral plane, bringing more understanding and peace to the subject matter of S,A, and D, so it can now be bathed in sunlight over the next few songs, then blown away six tracks on. We never understand the meaning of things as they are happening only later as we pick over them in our dreams and moments.

To live in love / Is all there is / Life without love / Is meaningless. Thats from To Live in Love, my favorite track on the disk, a French cafe-style tune with lyrics that are somehow both existential and passionate and answer Hamlets question: To live in love / Is to be. Geldofs singing starts wispy like Marlene Dietrich and builds to a full throated crescendo against lovely moon-soaked mandolin strings. It opens your heart wide enough that even the Esquivelesque tra-la-la break in the song almost actually works. Almost. Why do these songs keep morphing into movie music and back? Briquette?

Then comes the irresistible hit single, Silly Pretty Thing. Countless poets and singers have expressed exuberance for life, but, like Nixon going to China, Geldof having plumbed the depthscan usher in this joy of springtime like no one else.Certainly, there are shadows of those depths even here, amidst all the sunshine, when he sings The one you love will love you back / And no ones spoilin anything. And of course, thats the secret. Thats why its so joyous. Shhhhhhh! The silly pretty thing is this song itself.

Systematic Six Pack, the albums other noisy guitar track, follows, updating the Rats song Keep it Up, and sending up the modern aging process with all its trembling, thrashing joys. If you play it loud it feels like its giving you a heart attack while youre in dreams. Like Blowfish, its brother and To Live in Love, its sister, this one also goes into soundtrack mode for a few seconds.

Dazzled by You is a gorgeous rave-up a real knockout of a song, which makes mention of the long-time Geldof theme of surfacing, or coming up for air. Heights and depths. Gulps of humanity. What can I say? Im dazzled.

Harmonics, guitar, and general sonic quality make Mary Says a younger cousin to Pink Floyds Goodbye Blue Sky. It is very pleasing to the ear and the heart and takes on perhaps added resonance with the recent goodbyes in Geldofs immediate family.

Bob goes high-pitched for the next song, Blow, not so much inheriting the wind as inhabiting it, blowing away the ashes of hate and sorrow like chaff, so that Love will find its way to you again.

Heres to You soars the album to a triumphant end (and completes Geldofs one-man Traveling Wilburys feat) with bright George Harrison sounding guitar licks and a toast to love and life. Its a perfect ender .. and then ..( wait ten seconds) .. theres .. an encore (is it possible to do spoilers in an album review?). Like a reappearing subject of a Michael Apted Up movie, the voice that once asked us how we spelled Dún Laoghaire resurfaces, older and the son of the proprietor of an Irish piano bar. Hes done alright. He introduces the song Young and Sober, which for all his silliness before and after still manages to ring starkly true as it takes us through Bobs life in pithy six-line episodes.Geldof has always treated traditional Irish music the way Mick Jagger treated Country and Western he mocks it as he performs it, but it still sounds good.

2001s Sex, Age, and Death was profound and fearless a healing album for me personally, but one that I can only truly listen to alone. I can put How to Compose on in the living room and people dig it. And with its broader appeal, the album gives up its depth and trueness not at all.

Geldofs choice to eschew the political and social and write and sing only about things of the heart serves him well on How to Compose Popular Songs That Will Sell and I hope that, in his restlessness, he goes the exact opposite direction next time out if thats where the muse takes him.