Science has now made official what millions of us already knew—modern pop music is too loud, too bland, and it all sounds the same. And I will enhance this scientific finding by adding, based upon my own research, 97% of it sucks.
So disheartening is the state of contemporary popular music, with very few exceptions, the sensible option may be to try to avoid exposure to it, entirely. No Top Ten (formerly Top 40) radio, no American Idol/America's Got Talent/X Factor, no synthetic cut ‘n' paste riffs and slogans masquerading as music. Every once in a blue moon a Black Keys will crawl out of the morass to cast in sharp relief just how deplorable the rest of it is. Otherwise, it’s costly satellite radio and sources like Little Steven’s Underground Garage to hear any decent, new rock and pop.
Thing is, of course, there are plenty of albums of real music, in every genre, still being made. It’s just that the industrial-entertainment complex doesn’t make it especially easy (or inexpensive) to hear it. Getting an independent artist shelf space in one of the monolithic retail chain stores must be like trying to stock an alternative fuel in a BP station. So bless labels like Anti-Recordings for signing artists like Kelly Hogan and for releasing albums like I Like to Keep Myself in Pain.
Given the fruit fly lifespan of pop career cycles, Kelly Hogan may appear to be a new artist. She is, in fact, a well-established, highly respected singer with a devoted following both within the music community and among discerning listeners. The high esteem in which she’s held accounts for the remarkable roster of songwriters and backing musicians who contribute to I Like to Keep Myself in Pain. Touring the U.K. in the 1990s with the ill-fated Jody Grind band, for instance, led to Robyn Hitchcock offering one of his most accessible songs to this album.
Not a debut, then, I Like… is instead the first release from Hogan since 2001’s Because It Feel Good, the one that opened where her aching delivery remade The Statler Brothers’ “I’ll Go to My Grave (Loving You)” into a signature song for the vocalist. Hogan put this latest album on hold for “enough years for it to graduate high school” while she provided vocal assistance and served as an onstage foil to fellow indie music darling Neko Case, contributed to other recording projects, and sometimes toured as a solo act.
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