Justin Currie is better than God
Just out from the former frontman of underrated Scottish band Del Amitri is Justin Currie’s new solo album What Is Love For. It’s already available from the New Zealand iTunes Store and as a CD on the Rykodisc label. The pop song is the musical equivalent of the short story; the perfect one something you strive for and never quite attain; the end result a deceptively simple embodiment of a craft largely inaudible to the listener. ‘Walking Through You’ is the most immediate expression of that craft on this record. Anyone who filed Del Amitri under ‘mainstream AOR’ never listened beyond the melodies; just beneath that veneer is something altogether darker and more heartrending. There is a coded personal language to a relationship break up that Currie managed to interpret over and over again. Sample some of the new songs on his MySpace page, or better still support him by buying this CD. Currie has written some of the best pop lyrics ever. This record continues his habit of penning bittersweet love songs that leave you wearing a twisted smile, feeling some of the hurt the circumstances must have caused him: “But if I ever loved you/shouldn’t I be crying/Shouldn’t I be cracking up/And drinking all the time?” Currie is one of the most talented songwriters around and fortunately, for those of you who don’t believe that, he’s written a beginner’s guide to songwriting to prove he knows what he’s singing about. Touchingly, he dedicates this album to Dels guitarist Iain Harvie, “without whom I’d be a basket case”. Hearing it, you suspect writing love songs is less cathartic for Currie than it is for his audience. What love is for—assuming you’re damaged enough—is sharing the uplift that can only be had from heartbreak.
posted by Chris Bell at 12:41 PM
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