Review: Various Artists - Ypsisongs (7.9)

Overall Rating: 7.9 Lyrics: 7.7 Melodies: 8.2 Arrangements: 7.7 Thematicity: 8.2 Originality: 7.9 Production: 7.7

In the years since Sufjan Stevens released his seminal Greetings From Michigan, historical and geographical theme albums have become a common trope in indie rock. From the Firey Furnaces' exploration of depression-era Chicago in Rehearsing My Choir to the Hold Steady's Minneapolitain rock opera Separation Sunday to Conor Oberst's New York-themed I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning to Stevens's own sequel, Illinois, American music now seems obsessed with finding a sense of place in the incresingly homogeneous, characterless, and commodified American landscape whose shortcomings were made an integral part of the genre's collective consciousness by Modest Mouse's seminal The Lonesome Crowded West nearly ten years ago. It seems logical, given the trend, that geographically-themed compilation albums, featuring bands from a given locality performing songs about that locality, would soon come into vogue. I don't know if it's the first such album ever released, but Ypsisongs, a limited-edition release on Cerberus records on which a variety of musicains from Ypsilanti, Michigan play Ypsilanti-themed songs, certainly fits the mold quite neatly (hell, six out of sixteen songs on it include either the city's name or some pun thereon in their title). When I first heard about it, I'll admit I was somewhat skeptical of the record's intentions (it's hard to imagine a record like this not sounding like a vapid tourist pamphlet), but upon hearing it, I was pleasantly surprised: while Ypsisongs does occasionally veer toward kitsch and self-commodification, those aren't it's primary attributes. I can't say that it captures the spirit of the place on which it focusses as well as any of the works mentioned above, and I certainly can't say it displays the same consistency (perhaps there's a lesson here somewhere about unity of purpose and plurality of participants, though I'll confine such musings to this parenthetical), but it features a surprisingly catchy battery of songs and contains a few real gems. In fact I only have two real issues with Ypsisongs. One is that unlike Stevens' records or the Firey Furnaces', whose geographical focus runs parallel to (and is often merely a cover for) the more universal themes of the human nature relation to the divine and the fragmentary, episodic construction of life and memory, respectively, there isn't too much more than Ypsilanti's physical landscape which unifies Ypsisongs's tracklist in any meaningful way. The second is that it contains a few too many inside jokes and references listeners outside the Ypsilanti-Ann Arbor area are unlikely to understand or be able to look up (e.g. the phallic water tower glibly dubbed "the giant water dick" in Dave Lawson's "YP"). These criticisms may be a little unfair, for really, this album is intendend primarily to provide the listener with fun, catchy tunes and and to showcase Ypsilanti's talented artists rather than for any more grandiose and philosophical purpose; and it succeeds in those aims. That won't make it a great record, mind, but it certainly will make it a good one, and one of the few compilations released in a long time that I've had any affection toward.

The tracks on Ypsisongsgenerally fall into three categories: those that serve as paeans to -- and perhaps advertisements for -- the city itself as a whole, those that present personal stories using the city as a backdrop, and those which capitalize on some scrap of local history, urban legend, etc. and expand it into a song. All three sets have their exemplars and their dross. In the first category, far and away the best (and probably my favorite song on the entire album) is Dave Lawson's "YP," which both channels the spirit of Sufjan Steven's "Come On! Feel the Illinoise!" and mimics its arrangement; far and away the worst is the half-assed "Ypsilanti Is a Great Place to Live" by Charlie Slick & Johnny Ill, which features little thought and less production. In the second category (which is the most consistently listenable), the award goes to Annie Palmer's charged "Ypsilanti Won't You Let Me," a succinct and eloquent expression of small-town malaise, though Emily Jane Powers's story of listlessness, love, loss, and physical and emotional uprooting "Thief" comes in at a close second. The third category features the most questionable contributions, though Drunken Barn Dance's "Circle the Wagons" is a pleasant mid-album surprise and Leaving Rouge's John Spencer-esque "Normal Street" is notable both for its humor and for its energy. As a whole, the album begins and ends well (the finale is a quick hardcore number by Coke Dick Motorcycle Awesome), but the middle tends to drag a bit. Production is a slight issue (as might be expected, it varies a great deal from song to song), but not a damning one. There are some great melodies here and some reasonably good lyrics at parts, but as a whole, while Ypsisongs doesn't embarrass itself in the way it handles its theme, it doesn't turn Ypsilanti into the backdrop for all struggling youth in small, out-of-the way cities the way Jacksonville City Nights turned Jacksonville into Winesburg, Ohio or Separation Sunday turned Minneapolis into an interior wasteland of neoteny and addiction. It is fun, though, in that it features some addictive melodies (especially Lawson's), but while I'd recommend Ypsisongs to residents of Ypsilanti, Ann Arbor, and their environs, I don't think a lot of the record's references or musical idiosyncrasies will have the same appeal outside the area. I'm surprised to have been so pleased by the first serious geographically-themed compilation I've heard, though I suspect that subsequent offerings in the genre won't be nearly as engaging.

-BT