The Endorsement - Benji Hughes

I don't want to hear about what music you like and you don't want to hear about mine. I know. Nothing worse than someone forcing some lame-o tunes down your ear drum and going, "Eh? You like? Hmmmm?" Who can fake a response to that? I certainly can't.

But, I venture out on a limb here and offer you Benji Hughes. Thanks to a certain magazine (ahem), I got this album and have yet to stop bobbing my head, dancing in my car, and I can't make myself take this album out of rotation. Can't do it. Won't do it.

Benji Hughes', A Love Extreme, the debut double album, yes that's right, debut double album, is pretty irresistible.


Start with the album cover, itself. Wow. How high do you think he was?

And then, once you've digested that, let's look at the music. Let's say the singer from TV on the radio (how many are they? one? more? anyway...) meets Rivers Cuomo. They decide to go to a bar and they run into Wayne Coyne fresh off from doing something surely obnoxious. Theyall go to the bathroom together, run into Julian Casablancas from The Strokes, shooting up in one of the stalls, and decide to live a little and have a big orgy. They have a baby. That baby sleeps with Beck. Benji Hughes is born.

Sometimes music's just too serious. Too intense. Too full of itself. This isn't. It's not joke music either. It's not supposed to be funny. It's not Frank Zappa cracking crappy jokes over awesome music, it's awesome lyrics over awesome music. It's definitely not wrist slitting headphones music; Radiohead he is not, thankfully. It's not political. It's not a sad bastard hymnal. It's straightforward every day life stuff.

You got stood up for a date one time? So did he. At the Dairy Queen. Let him tell you about it. Like girls in tight tee shirts? Lots of people do. Benji Hughes thought it was important enough to let it be his lead song on his debut album. He wrote a song about playing his music too loud. About him wanting someone to fall in love with him. About going to a concert. Thank God. Who needs all the obscure, snobby imagery when people can just tell you what they're talking about.

He describes a womans lips, and says they taste like candy. "Like really awesome candy." Well, there you go. No overly poetic garbage there.

This guy's a keeper. And a fat ass. And sort of looks like a freak. But a keeper, indeed.