Summer of '89
From: The Spade
Released: August 30
It has to be a little frustrating being Butch Walker. He's spent such a huge chunk of his career co-writing with and/or producing other artists' albums and watching them achieve massive success (see Avril Lavigne, Katy Perry, Pink, Simple Plan, Weezer, many others), while people have largely ignored his own artistic output. Walker's former band Marvelous3 was a minor blip on the radar way back in 1999 with the song Freak of the Week, but since then he's had struggles holding the attention of listeners (myself included) through a string of increasingly adult contemporary-oriented solo albums. That's why it was such a shock to hear Summer of '89, a loud and raucous track that, while certainly sporting a pronounced pop sheen in its production, hearkens back to the wild and reckless arena-sized noise that Marvelous3 stopped making about ten years ago.
As it turns out, the majority of The Spade, while slick and bright in overall production, has its heart in the classic rock and pop that Walker grew up with; think Ziggy Stardust meets Slippery When Wet. There's a lot of nostalgia at work in the album's lyrics, and that's no coincidence; Walker also published a memoir this year that serves as pretty much the most detailed liner notes any album could ask for.
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