When Golden Delicious came out, I was really excited for new Mike Doughty. Meghan, Melissa & I went to a CD release party for it and watched Mike Doughty put on a little mini-concert at the Electric Fetus and it was really fun and exciting.
And then the album wasn’t that great. Too much of it relied on repetition and beat and it was honestly overproduced. Parts of it were honestly annoying to listen to on the first listen because he just kept saying the same thing over and over again.
A couple weeks ago I happened to look at Mike Doughty’s website during a moment of boredom and found he had a new album coming out. I had a short moment where I my heart jumped a little bit and I was really excited, but that was quickly replaced by a feeling of trepidation as I remembered my disappointment in Golden Delicious. So I made a mental note to keep an eye out for it and moved on.
About 20 minutes ago, as I was waiting for a server update to download, I had another moment of boredom and found out that Sad Man Happy Man had come out today. Not expecting much, but wanting to support Mike Doughty in his artistic efforts, I purchased the album from iTunes…
… and was pleasantly surprised to find an album full of the sorts of things I loved about Mike Doughty when I first started listening to his solo efforts: simple, moving songs with melody and grace played by a man and his acoustic guitar. And, even better, the album benefits from the addition of a cello and some honest-to-goodness rapping.
Basically, it’s album produced by one guy with a passion, rather than a record company.