Lucero: 1372 Overton Park, part 2

To: Brian and Scott
From: Monty

I listened to this first in my car, thinking that perhaps that wasn’t giving it a fair shake. But then about two songs into it I realized that’s the perfect environment for this record. Back in high school, this is precisely the kind of thing my friends and I would have been blasting from our 8-tracks (yes, high school was that long ago for me) as we drove around town on the weekends and in the summer. It has everything rock and roll meant to us: women, cars, booze, late night hangouts.... What’s not to like, right?

Well.....yeah. As I was mentioning to Brian a couple weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to have arrived at that age at a time when lots of iconic artists and groups were still together, and more-or-less still at the top of their game. During my formative listening years, Bowie was recording albums like Diamond Dogs and “Heroes”; Pink Floyd was giving us Wish You Were Here and Animals; Led Zep put our Physical Graffiti; the Stones were still creating relevant music; and the Beatles, though no longer together, were still in heavy radio rotation. Hell, even Alice Cooper had some interesting records at the time. But also emanating from those 8-track decks back then was a bunch of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Bachman Turner Overdrive, R.E.O. Speedwagon, and a host of other stuff I loved then and couldn’t care less about now. I’m afraid I have to group Lucero in with the latter group rather than the former.

Notice, though, that I’m intentionally not calling this a bad record. It goes without saying that there are gobs of great bands that won’t ever get lumped in with Zeppelin and Bowie. The fact is Overton Park is a perfect example of what I was talking about in my Fiery Furnaces review: Without really liking it very much myself, I can completely understand how other people might enjoy it, as Brian clearly does. Catchy melodies, sing-alongable choruses, musical and lyrical hooks -- I’ll admit to bobbing my head and tapping a foot with it here and there on multiple listens. It just speaks a little too heavily to a place and time in life that I’ve left behind. If I liked it a little more I’d find it nostalgic. (I still have all the Eagles’ albums on my iPod, fergodsakes.) But instead, I’m just finding it kind of pleasantly innocuous.

--Monty