Jason Collett, Here’s To Being Here
Featured Album
Broken Social Scener channels Bob…and Jakob on this breezy solo outing.
Broken Social Scene guitarist Jason Collett seems to be the rare Dylanophile who loves the man's music as much as his lyrics — maybe even more so. Alt-country isn't the sort of tag you can toss around without someone getting hurt and here, for all Collett's rootsy flourishes, it's particularly inappropriate. Nor, despite sounds pilfered from sources such as John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band and the falsetto-and-disco of the Stones '"Emotional Rescue" (not to mention what could be a Linda McCartney keyboard solo), is this mere pastiche. Collett just loves traditional rock music as a language that's far from exhausted, which is why it's the small touches, like the playful guitar hook on "Sorry Lori," that you take away.
Maybe he could study Dylan's lyrics a tad more — Collett's heartland is strewn with secondhand madonnas and whores, recollections of "stayin 'stoned on Highway 401," and other detritus mistook for mythos. But when he wants to he can cut to the point with an enthusiastic burst like "Just say yes, just say yes, just say yes." And anyway, the comparisons to Bob are overplayed anyway. Vocally, he sounds more like a Dylan named Jakob. Maybe even more like a Dylan named "Tom Petty."
