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Doolittle was the first CD I purchased. A true cheapskate teen in the early '90s, I loved the previous Pixies' slabs, but owned them on cassette: Along with Dinosaur Jr. and Sonic Youth, though, the Pixies were my high school soundtrack, so I opted to take the plunge and enter the newfangled digital age with their masterwork.
I evoke early fandom because after the Pixies' split, I hardly listened to Black Francis a/k/a Frank Black; when not surrounded by the varied, often clashing sensibilities of those other Pixies players, his streamlined, unchecked songwriting snored generically. Now, more than a decade after throwing out my back slam-dancing to "Debaser," the logorrhea-prone songwriter continues unleashing material at a rapid-fire rate. His sprawling new collection, Fastman Raiderman, typifies what's always baffled me, in varying degrees, about Black's post-Pixies performances: Just about any Van Morrison fan could be performing this countrified rock-n-roll soul-less soul.
To be fair, some songs possess strong moments. To be honest, each eventually finds a way to sputter. His "In The Time of My Ruin" opens with oomph, then sinks with a drab AOR chorus. An intriguing Captain Beefheart vibe introduces "If Your Poison Gets You," but the tune gives way to boring Americana. It's painful to say, but Mr. Black's "Highway To Lowdown" is no more compelling than Mr. Tom Cochrane's "Life Is A Highway." Or, on a cover of Ewan MacColl's "Dirty Old Town," twanging honky-tonk crooner Marty Brown out-classes a flat-lining Black, illustrating that perhaps the former teenager of the year is better suited to flex his musical muscle in post-punk Boston than Nashville.
It's not difficult pinpointing what went wrong: Black spent two years recoding these 27 songs (hire an editor!), enlisting the aid of members of the Band, Cheap Trick, the Heartbreakers, Bad Company, and Free, among others. That crusty Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame-style casting makes perfect sense: I can easily imagine Paul Shaffer "jamming" on these sessions, embarrassing facial gestures and all.
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