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The Headphone Masterpiece

by

Cody ChesnuTT

 
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The Headphone Masterpiece
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Avg: 3.5 (45 ratings)

Shamelessly ambitious, frequently flawed, wonderfully loveable

  • We Say...

    Review by Philip Sherburne

    The Headphone Masterpiece? Well, yes and no: this lo-fi collection of homespun R&B was definitely made with headphones in mind (and from the sound of things, it was recorded through them as well). But therein lies its charm. Perhaps in the MySpace era we've gotten used to a musical landscape littered with diamonds in the rough, but when The Headphone Masterpiece appeared in 2002, it felt like a very different kind of release. Its creator was a virtual unknown outside L.A. music circles, and the album — his debut — was shamelessly ambitious, sprawling to fill two CDs with no fewer than 37 tracks. In many ways, it felt more like a sketchbook than a finished product; 11 tracks ran less than two minutes, and all of them sounded like demos — maybe even demos of demos. After a major-label deal had gone bad, ChesnuTT had recorded the whole thing by himself, at home, complete with audible tape hiss and a mixdown that would have most audio engineers weeping onto their consoles.

    If ChesnuTT's amateur ethic came straight from Sebadoh, his musical influences are harder to pin down: working with a stripped-down toolbox of drum machine, sparse keyboards, guitars and, occasionally, full-band workouts played entirely by a multitracking ChesnuTT, the record ambles from British Invasion rock 'n' roll ("Upstairs in a Blowout") to experiments in left-field synth-pop ("The World Is Coming to My Party") to cheerfully misogynist hip-hop ("Bitch, I'm Broke"). But the album's core is classic soul in the vein of Al Green and Curtis Mayfield, with ChesnuTT's able voice placed front and center (and, often, left and right as well, as he harmonizes with himself). Editing clearly isn't in ChesnuTT's vocabulary; spending 105 minutes inside his head can be tedious as well as fascinating. But that's true of most geniuses and most diaries, and there are enough rewarding moments here to make this one well-worth flipping through; songs like "Serve This Royalty" and "Up in the Treehouse" are sure to earn their dog ears.

  • They Say...

    Review by Michael Gowan, All Music Guide

    Cody ChesnuTT's debut album, The Headphone Masterpiece, is what all pop/rock-soul-R&B-hip-hop hybrids should be: good, raw, fun, and funky. ChesnuTT mixes '60s-style rock with '70s soul and '90s hip-hop and R&B in an eclectic celebration of sound. This lo-fi gem was recorded in his bedroom and sounds like it; it's essentially a 36-track musical diary. He sings testosterone-driven songs of passion and tender tales of mental anguish with equal abandon. When he whispers, "I know my breakdown is on the way," on "My Women, My Guitars," you feel his impending fall. He plays almost all of the instruments and sings most of the vocals, and he's often out of tune and off-key, but that only adds to the emotion and recklessness of the album. He holds everything together with a few polished and catchy tracks that are scattered throughout. On "Looks Good in Leather," he sounds like Terence Trent D'Arby or Ben Harper, but with a style that's all Cody ChesnuTT. "The World Is Coming to My Party" is a full-fledged dance anthem, complete with a rafter-shaking groove that Prince would be proud of. He just as easily channels Curtis Mayfield on the smooth "Serve This Royalty," which showcases ChesnuTT's soulful voice and may be the finest track, combining his great grasp of groove with clever lyrics like, "We can crown kings in Adidas." ChesnuTT is as comfortable in the hip-hop world as he is in the rock and soul spheres. He lays down a funky rap on "War Between the Sexes," and few hardcore gangstas can match his misogyny on "Bitch I'm Broke." While a few songs lack ChesnuTT's charm, the misses don't disturb the groove enough to hinder the overall effect: a masterpiece, with or without headphones.

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