Everything Turned Blue--Adam Schmitt--World So Bright--

American Idol in A Better World

Listen to this album and contemplate how this music could not have succeeded. When I was in Champaign, I remember seeing this guy around town performing, but I couldn't remember where. I was pretty sure I saw him when he was in the Farm Boys, and then in Pop The Balloon. I thought that maybe I saw him doing a cover of  "color me impressed" somewhere. But I could be wrong. I thought that he was somebody who had a lot of talent though. Later on he landed a major label deal and put out a two albums and he put out a third album on Parasol, Demolition, more recently. World So Bright was his first, and in the rock tradition of McCartney and Emmit Rhodes, most of the music was performed himself, save the drumming. This is a terrific album that somehow fell through the cracks. People who are familiar with it know what I mean--in the power pop guide by John Borack, Shake Some Action this was ranked #9 of all time. And he even looks like a rock star.

Power pop is an odd sort of genre, in that a lot of ways it is not a genre at all, and can encompass a lot of different bands, though most would agree The Butthole Surfers are not power pop. It is like yuppie, a pejorative term that somehow gained positive traction by some. Originally I think it referred to bands that sounded like the Beatles, but lacked the substance and songwriting chops, imitators. Later on people picked up on the term, saying "what's wrong with well-executed songs with big hooks and beautiful harmonies"? Cheap Trick, Big Star, The Posies, The Knack are all considered to fall under this aegis, but their styles are not all that similar. And as far as I can see, this World So Bright is more accurately a classic 80's rock album, in the vein of The Replacements/Paul Westerberg, or Tommy Keene. And as much I like the Knack, there is nothing on here like My Sharona. The songs have great chops and depth--I don't know why I didn't see him on MTV or hear him any hits on the radio.

World So Bright starts out with a should-have-been hit Dead End, a tough melodic (ultimately ironic) song.
The title track follows with its expressively orchestrated balladry--really nice. Can't get you on my mind is another nice tune, featuring guest guitar work from the late Jay Bennett of Wilco. River Black is a driving dramatic rock tune--the sort of song that Jon BonGiovi still uses to fill stadiums with. The more I listen to this, the more of a head scratcher this is. Every song on this album is very good to great--not one duff track, and this is definitely an album of its era, not decades ahead of its time.

Garden of Love, My Killer, Everything Turned Blue, all great tracks. My favorite song by a hair is Elizabeth Einstein, a nice Beatley ballad a perfect song for a movie soundtrack. Scarlet Street is another melodic album highlight. The album satisfyingly ends on a reflective At Season's End. In the final analysis, one of the best unknown albums of the 80's, and you can purchase it for pennies. They must have pressed a million of them and then changed their mind. After the his second album,  the much louder but still good Illiterature, he was dropped by his label, and is still involved in the music business but more in the area of recording bands/producing albums. Sometime in the near future a long overdue album is forthcoming, hopefully. But check this record out and see what you have been missing out on!!!