Mike Doughty
Golden Delicious (ATO)
By Jonathan Shipley
Published: February 26th, 2008 | 10:45am
Mike Doughty has always marched to the beat of a different drummer. His music can’t be easily defined or placed neatly into a musical style. It’s not straight up rock and roll though it rocks; it’s not electronic, though there are elements; it’s not hip-hop, or funk, or Beatnik-y folk but, yes, you can hear all that in his tunes as well. Perhaps it’s his indefinable quality that makes his latest album, Golden Delicious, so good and -- I fear -- so underplayed due to the qualities that make it so indefinable. It’s a musical Catch-22.
Golden Delicious is Doughty’s second solo effort featuring a band. The first was the infectious Haughty Melodic released three years ago. The album was a fun romp through musical styles, effectively using Doughty’s witty lyrics and mesmerizing rough-cut voice; it was a departure from his earlier days in the seminal alternative band, Soul Coughing. Formed in 1992, Soul Coughing had a musical robustness that swooned from style to style without care. Haughty Melodic was Soul Coughing for the Starbucks crowd -- a little more focused, and a little more mainstream. With Golden Delicious, Doughty turns back the clock, returning to his Soul Coughing roots, resulting in an edgier, more fun album.
It’s this “returning to his roots” that might lead listeners, unfamiliar with his music, away in that they’ll be unable to hear it on the radio. But, different is good and hopefully Doughty will be given the air time he rightly deserves.
Issue #12
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