Matt Palmer’s catchy debut; NPH punks out as Hedwig
WIG OUT OF THE BOX | Neil Patrick Harris won a Tony last month as ‘Hedwig;’ now you can hear why.
Stranger than Fiction
Matt Palmer
From the familiar squeezed-sound opening of “The Break-Up” — the opening track from Matt Palmer’s self-released debut EP — it’s clear he’s adept at those radio-friendly songs that gets your head boppin’ to easy lyrics. That it’s stylistically indistinguishable from the CD’s second track, ”Whatever It Takes,” is hardly a bad thing — Palmer’s upbeat, wailing tenor was made for pop music.
Openly gay, Palmer doesn’t shy away from making it clear when he’s singing about another man, as he does most plainly on the most directly R&B-infused songs. “Teardrops” explains his sexual unrequited yearning while delving briefly into rap (musically, it’s the most convoluted song, but the words resonate). “Only When It Rains,” which substantially samples the Garbage hit from the mid-1990s, turns the perspective of the song in on itself: Instead of singing I’m only happy when it rains, Palmer says He’s only … voicing a frustration with relationships that sounds as bitchy as gay boys at brunch.
“Give Me You” offers an engaging syncopated Calypso rhythm with layered lyric tracks, while “Snow” starts off with a simple piano-vocal solo that sounds like it might be all-unplugged, but Palmer can’t resist adding some reverb and supplementing the baseline with strings on the mix. That’s the sign of a musician who wants it all, and is willing to give it to anybody who’ll listen. See interview, Matt Booming.
Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Original Broadway cast recording
Anyone who has seen Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog — or even caught his appearance on Glee a few seasons ago — knows that Neil Patrick Harris knows his way around a song. For those who didn’t realize it yet, they should be convinced by Hedwig and the Angry Inch. The original cast recording of the Tony Award-winning revival, just out on CD and other formats, is a testament not only to Harris but to composer Stephen Trask and the entire production, which comes through clearly as what it is: A true rock opera.
A cast recording has never been available before, though the show has been around for more than 15 years, but that doesn’t mean you haven’t had access to the songs. The indie film — directed by and starring John Cameron Mitchell, who also wrote the script — is a showcase for Mitchell’s interpretation of a character he wrote; no other singers stand out on the soundtrack. But here, we not only get Harris’ reinterpretation of the lyrics and phrasing (sometimes better than Mitchell, sometimes not, but always engaging), we also have Lena Hall’s voice in the unfamiliar numbers “When Love Explodes (Love Theme from The Hurt Locker)” and “The Long Grift,” and you realize why she won a Tony last month, too.
Trask’s score is a genuinely rock-infused — a rollicking punk celebration that rivals Green Day’s American Idiot and Richard O’Brien’s Rocky Horror Show. It howls, it screeches, it wails and thrashes across 14 numbers, including “Tear Me Down,” “Wig in a Box,” “Wicked Little Town” and “Midnight Radio.” If those titles don’t ring a bell already, trust me: Listen to this album once, and you’ll quickly get hooked and commit them to memory.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition July 11, 2014.