[music] AD FRANK - Is The World's Best Ex-Boyfriend (Stop, Pop & Roll)

If pressed, I would still say 2001's Mr. Fancypants is my favorite Ad Frank record, but this one has changed from a disappointment to a serious rival for the honor. It just took me a while. I love Ad's voice enough that when it comes to his lyrics I am probably biased toward whichever ones I've heard most recently; that said, these have more layers than usual in addition to their cleverness.

Ad is the world's best Ad Frank, which means that like Mark Eitzel he can sometimes boil down his emotional perspective so precisely that a song is missing the easy reference points a listener might expect. If you write a wistful song and it sounds wistful, you're set. If it sounds ironically overwrought because it's about wistfulness disguised as self-deprecation disguised as overreaction ("The Only One I Knew In Jamaica Plain"), it might take a few listens to get it. Actually, I hadn't thought about just how much he has in common with Eitzel-- both are bleak, sexually ambiguous barflies with similar senses of humor. You may find this an unimpressive bit of insight given that Ad name-dropped Mark Eitzel a few albums ago, but I think he's grown into the resemblance, and it never struck me before.

The other thing which slowed down my appreciation of this record is its instrumentation, which happened to me last time too. I don't know where the occasional impulses to be REO Speedwagon come from, but I wish the band would resist them.