Josh Rouse
Nashville (Rykodisc)
Nine other blue-eyed pop simplicities are cause for reverie on Josh Rouse’s fifth LP, Nashville, more AM radiolike delights from the Seventies. Bread, for whom worthy new tribute disc Friends and Lovers: Songs of Bread (Badman) opens with Rouse, was never more missed, along with Dr. Hook, B.J. Thomas, and Boz Scaggs. Not as cohesive nor as musically alliterative as the Tennessee divorcee’s previous breakthrough, 1972, this wistful, meticulous collection of short, (bitter) sweet strummers fits its nostalgic niche like a K-Tel bargain bin 12-inch. From the steel-trimmed boyishness of leader “It’s the Nighttime,” through the stringed lift of “Streetlights” and daydream of “Middle School Frown,” landing with the homesick “Saturday” and unabashedly romantic “Life,” Nashville is as idyllic as the thirtysomething singer-songwriter’s new home of Barcelona. Then there’s “Winter in the Hamptons,” a three-minute pop lark as upbeat and timeless as a Christine McVie tune channeled through Lindsey Buckingham. Ba-da-da-bah-bah… “Here we go, singing our songs with our soul. Winter is gone where do we belong? We have stayed too long. Friday night, so uptight, we get stoned. Sit in the Hamptons, it is too cold. We have stayed too long.” Ba-da-da-bah-bah. Again and again and again, 100 times if there was one. Music City finally got it right.
This article appears in “The AC” Gen Y Magazine Debuts.
