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Avg: 4.0 (203 ratings)
- Date Released: April 26, 2001
- Genre: Alternative/Punk
- Style: Indie Rock
- Label: Misra Records
A cult classic from a New Pornographer.
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We Say...
Destroyer is the main project of Dan Bejar, an ace indie-rock songwriter who charts novelistic wanderings through scenic maps of the industry and the underground. He's shown off his talent in a smattering of songs for his other band, the New Pornographers, but Streethawk: A Seduction finds Bejar going all the way, layering allusions and winks into songs that are as heartfelt as they are sly and literate. "Streethawk I" introduces the album's air of Bowie-like grandiosity, rambling through a glam-rock conglomeration of guitar and piano while Bejar writhes vocally about scenesters struggling to stay sharp in a dead city. In "Beggars Might Ride," he asks, typically wordily, "Girl, what could've been 'til you gave up the violin for a slight but distasteful penchant for men?" In Bejar's lyrical universe, issues of musical fandom and selling out stand in for issues much larger in scope. Surveying the temptations of rock and pretty much everything else in "The Bad Arts," Bejar lashes out: "In these tough, tough times, friends like mine would rather dash than dine on the bones of what's thrown to them/ When a wave of the wand has us back at the pond, taking notes for a crooked underground." Few songwriters better communicate what it's like to live in and among music.
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They Say...
Destroyer has rightfully been compared to early-'70s David Bowie due to the band's fey, British-sounding pop/rock with pretty keyboard passages, attractive folky acoustic strums, and assertive, fluid electric guitar riffs. Streethawk: A Seduction does nothing to counteract that comparison, particularly when you get to "The Sublimation Hour," which is such an accurate amalgam/facsimile of the Hunky Dory era that it might pass for an outtake if Bowie did the vocals. Not a bad role model to take, it must be admitted, and actually not an overdone one, despite its eminence in the pop consciousness. The most problematic aspects, then, are Daniel Bejar's vocals, which don't match Bowie's in strength or nuance. Sometimes there are shades of Lou Reed as well, though that might be secondhand since everyone knows how heavily Reed influenced Bowie. It might work better if Bejar took a songwriting role and had someone else sing. The lyrics are playful, occasionally observational-ironic, and more oblique than Bowie's, which is saying something as Bowie could be pretty oblique. So it's derivative and inferior to the king of this particular hill. But those reservations aside it's decent music and certainly well-crafted, skillfully varying the moods with a range of subtle, understated arrangements that retain a rock foundation.
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| 01. |  |
Streethawk I |
2:26 |
|
| 02. | |
Bad Arts |
7:01 |
|
| 03. | |
Beggars Might Ride |
2:45 |
|
| 04. | |
Sublimation Hour |
4:12 |
|
| 05. | |
English Music |
3:35 |
|
| 06. | |
Virgin With a Memory |
2:40 |
|
| 07. | |
Very Modern Dance |
3:14 |
|
| 08. | |
Crossover |
5:03 |
|
| 09. | |
Helena |
3:45 |
|
| 10. | |
Farrar, Straus and Giroux (Sea of Tears) |
3:47 |
|
| 11. | |
Strike |
2:59 |
|
| 12. | |
Streethawk II |
2:29 |
|
12 Total Tracks, 43:56 Total Length
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Credits
- Destroyer - Main Performer // Jason Zumpano - Organ // Jason Zumpano - Piano // Derek Almstead - Mastering // John Collins - Percussion // John Collins - Guitar (Bass) // John Collins - Producer
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