Send "Daniel Johnston " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Popmatters |
 One thing is pretty much for certain when it comes to the music of Daniel Johnston: you generally don’t sit on the fence with him; you either love him or hate him. (Or, in the case of the mainstream, you have no clue as to who he is, though that might change due to a rumored biopic in the works that could star Johnny Depp, Philip Seymour Hoffman and John C. Reilly.) For those not in the know, Daniel Johnston is something out of an outsider musician whose biggest claim to fame in the indie world is for releasing a series of albums on cassette tape throughout the ‘80s that were Spartan and lo-fi. For some, Johnston’s early output is something of a revelation: plainly sung, earnest songs backed up with a cheap organ or guitar recorded on a $59 boom box. For others, Johnston’s mewly vocals are akin to fingernails being dragged across a chalkboard. It seems that the majority of people probably fall into the latter camp, considering that Johnston’s sole major label record, 1994’s Fun, only sold a few thousand copies. Johnston is indeed an acquired taste.So it’s strange that I find myself on the fence with Daniel Johnston. As someone who struggles with mental illness personally, I find Johnston to be a heroic figure as he notably has grappled with a bipolar disorder, and very seriously, as the illuminating documentary film The Devil and Daniel Johnston points out. The fact that he has had such a long and varied recording career in the face of that is something to behold. And lyrically, Johnston’s songwriting is so heart-on-his-sleeve, and his delivery so non-ironic that at its best, it is very often poignant and heartbreaking in a child-like way. (Sample: “And all my friends were vampires / didn’t know they were vampires / turns out I was a vampire myself / in the Devil Town”.) However, I’ve decided to hold Johnston’s music at a distance, not really able to get past his high-pitched, kid-like voice, and his early field recordings, which sometimes don’t hit all of the right notes. I always found songs like “Premarital Sex” or “Walking the Cow” interesting in concept, even though it was often hard to derive real pleasure or entertainment from them. Basically, you don’t crank up a Daniel Johnston song in your car with the windows rolled down, unless, of course, you really want to get stared at by pedestrians. Perhaps seeking to reach any potential fence-sitters like me, Johnston has decided to dust off some of his classic-period material through Beam Me Up!! in an effort to make these songs seem more palatable. The album does offer a new completely a cappella song as an opener, “Sarah Drove Around In Her Car”, but what follows are mostly jazzed-up or baroque versions of songs culled from Johnston’s classic ‘80s and ‘90s period (as well as three from 2003’s Fear Yourself) backed up by the 11-piece Dutch BEAM Orchestra. There are also a couple of other new songs which feature just Johnston and an electric guitar, one named “Mask”, and the other—“Last Song”—which is actually the penultimate track on the disc. ...full text |
| Tinymixtapes |
| For a guy who’s suffered a whole lot of mistreatment, the frequent comparisons to Brian Wilson have got to be one of the heavier burdens placed on Daniel Johnston in recent years. As Tiny Mix Taper Jeff Roesgen said in his review of last year’s Is And Always Was, many critics see Johnston and the erstwhile Beach Boys mastermind as kindred spirits (an idea the must-see documentary The Devil and Daniel Johnston fully embraces), despite the fact that the music of each could be seen as polar opposites. Wilson often needed lyrical translators to help him get his message across, employing entire orchestras and the best recording equipment of the day to craft his lush pop masterpieces; Johnston, for his part, made his most beloved recordings alone, in single takes, using nothing more than a tape recorder and whatever cheap instrument was at hand. To paraphrase Roesgen, the only common ground they ostensibly share is as pop prodigies who struggled immensely to overcome crippling mental illness. That said, during my first listen through Beam Me Up!, I couldn’t help but think of Wilson’s 2004 version of SMiLE, the long-lost Beach Boys magnum opus. Not due to stylistic similarities (there are none) or quality (talk about unfair comparisons!), but because in both cases it feels like the artist is tying up a loose end. Despite featuring a couple new songs, Beam Me Up! largely finds Johnston collaborating with the 11-piece BEAM Orchestra to flesh out old and familiar tunes cherry-picked from his three-decade career. And while it’s not quite as triumphant as Wilson’s unlikely completion of the woulda-been greatest record of all time, there’s something touching about hearing Johnston play some of his classic bedroom sketches in such a thoroughly arranged and well-produced environment. It’d be hard to know exactly what he had in mind when he was recording his cassette albums back in the 80s, but given the guy’s undying love for Beatles records, chances are Johnston’s ambitions didn’t end at cheap guitars and a chord organ. The results on Beam are charming and illuminative, as though the spare negatives of Johnston’s old stock have been blown into full-color, oversize prints. The piano pop of “Wicked World” winds up sounding like a jazzy romp on the Yellow Submarine, while the barebones introspection of “Try To Love” here blooms into an orchestral, redemptive epic. BEAM multiply the runtime and musical palette of 1990’s gorgeous minute-long a capella “Devil Town,” making for what might well be the song’s best performance. “Love Enchanted” shows more of its influence than ever before (“Hotel California,” apparently), while “The Beatles” trades a bit of its blatant Jackson 5 melody-griftin’ for the Motown flair that eluded Johnston back on 1983’s Yip/Jump Music. The only sore thumb is “Must,” an ethereal spook from the 2003 Mark Linkous collaboration Fear Yourself, which is dragged down to earth here thanks to a bloating dollop of James Bond theme song bombast. The stone cold classic “Walking The Cow” doesn’t quite work either, compressing too much of the original cut’s melodic space for an energetic shift in tempo — but it’s a strong enough song that a bit of its magic remains....full text |
| Tinymixtapes |
| When we last left our illimitable hero Daniel Johnston, he was, naturally, gearing up to tour Europe backed with an 11-piece Dutch orchestra. And while the "pilgrim of indie music with 30+ albums, hundreds of songs, and dozens of fans" probably could have left it at that and left us all perfectly bemused/satisfied, he's just upped the game, announcing the release of a new full-length studio album with the aforementioned musicians in the BEAM orchestra, a mere seven months after the release of his last full-length, Is and Always Was (TMT Review). The aptly titled Beam Me Up LP — which consists of three previously unreleased solo Johnston songs, “Mask,” “Sarah Drove In Her Car,” and “Last Song,” as well as nine re-recorded Johnston classics backed by BEAM, including “Devil Town,” “Beatles,” “Walking the Cow,” and others — will apparently be released on vinyl this Friday(!) via German label Hazelwood. But for those of you who are just yip/jumping to hear "True Love Will Find You In The End" played by an 11-piece orchestra, the whole album also seems to be available now for stream or download....full text |
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