The Observer, April 28, 2006
Volume XXXVIII, Issue 26
Lost in America may be worth losing
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Sometimes, people just crave bad pop music. I get it. How else can the extended popularity of American Idol be explained? So when Edwin McCain's newest release, Lost in America, showed up in my mailbox, I guiltily opened it and prepared myself for some chord-heavy ballads that wouldn't demand anything more than a few minutes of my time.
Little did I suspect that McCain's latest album, which became available for purchase on April 17, would demand so little of its listener. McCain, made famous in the mid-90s for "I'll Be," that power ballad you danced to at your eighth grade formal, and that your mom still listens to on the adult contemporary station, attempts to revamp his yearning singer-songwriter image on Lost in America. The artist comes out sounding like a cross between John Mayer wannabe Josh Kelley and America Idol loser Bo Bice. And not in a good way, though, in all fairness, McCain had the hair first.
Nearly all of the tracks on Lost in America have middling tempos somewhere between a ballad and a line dance. To his advantage, McCain has a distinctive, hard-edged voice; to his disadvantage, he rarely does anything with it other than challenge his listener to guess when it's going to crack from straining. It's one thing to have a niche in the musical world. It's something altogether different to be one-dimensional, and McCain walks a thin line between the two on Lost in America. The only song that lets McCain catch his breath and really show off his emotional side was penned by McCain's back-up vocalist; ironically, it could be the best track on the record. The songs on Lost in America are numbingly unoriginal. My attention waned halfway through the first track, "Gramercy Park Hotel," and when I forced myself to listen again around the fourth track, "Truly Believe," I thought I was still on the same song. It was not a great sign for the rest of the album.
I must applaud McCain for using his own experiences to fuel his lyrics, instead of fixating on an idealized, unattainable love interest like many a forlorn rocker. The very first words of the album, "Old Babe Ruth, he was a drunkard just like me," were quite promising, referencing McCain's bout with alcoholism, but McCain quickly drops the realism and somehow ends up as a toy monkey near the end of the song. His lyrics are similarly incongruous throughout the album, as he tries to paint in shades of symbolism and irony, and ends up with lines like "liposuction, big fake boobs." Extremely inspiring.
While listening to Lost in America, I couldn't stop thinking that I should give it to someone who could really appreciate it: my mom. Completely forgettable, and overwhelmingly reminiscent of a mid-90s middle school dance track, Lost in America deserves its title, as it illustrates the plight of a middle-of-the road songwriter searching for a hit, and missing completely.
