SOUND BITES

Butch Walker's eighth solo album (I still hold the torch for Marvelous 3 and their three records from 1997-2000) has many ambitions. For those familiar with his career to this point, the first ambition is to surprise; after building his formidable discography with sugary, nostalgic hard rock and introspective folk, American Love Story is his vision of a rock opera complete with spoken word segués, so many references to classic rock songs it's dizzying, and a loose narrative following a small town redneck learning to love and accept the differences in his life. It also aims to start a conversation in America, which is made plain by the incessant repetition of "are we having a conversation?" in The Singer , which serves as the album's introduction; it gets a bit grating, but effectively hammers the point. From there, strap in if you're a fan of classic rock radio; this album is described by Walker as being "wrapped up in a soundtrack that sounds like the F...

The problem with building your career on writing songs for others is that, too often, you don't get the chance to forge an identity of your own. For Butch Walker (writer of hits for pretty much everybody but himself), this feels exceedingly true with each album he releases. Having spent most of the past fifteen years and change alternating between snotty glam rocker and introspective singer-songwriter, his seventh solo record (after a trio of records with now defunct hair metal revivalist group Marvelous3) sees him firmly back in the latter camp.  Working with Ryan Adams (another fellow who knows a thing or two about criss-crossing between genres), Afraid of Ghosts finds Walker at his most bleak and subdued: so as to say, at his most Ryan Adams-like. Make no mistake, Walker's a talented artist, and there are some good songs here ( Still Drunk is the most effective of the many ballads, while 21+ packs a certain sultry charm).  At the end if its 39 minutes, though, Afraid of ...

BUTCH WALKER 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 ...