[rating=7]
Steven Page announcing his departure from well-known and highly successful pop group Barenaked Ladies in 2009 came across as somewhat nonchalant, carefree and easy. In fact, many had wondered about the seeming inevitable break ever since Page released his excellent solo album in 2005 under the guise of “The Vanity Project.” That album (mostly co-written with Stephen Duffy) showcased Page’s wit against a backdrop of tightly arranged and well-executed pop/rock tableaus. Songs like “Glitterbug,” “Wilted Rose,” “That’s All, That’s All” and “So Young, So Wrong, So Long” exemplified what made Page such a star as one-half of the BNL writing team. So, four years later to hear that he would be leaving Barenaked Ladies after twenty years, fans eagerly awaited the release of his next project.
Page’s first solo record under his own name, Page One (2010), is a solid effort and a pretty great collection of songs. The set starts with upbeat rocker “A New Shore,” the only song co-written with Craig Northey. Within the first thirty seconds, listeners encounter both first verse and chorus, replete with trademark Page-ian background harmonies. It’s a fantastic way to start out the somewhat uneven album that ensues. It’s a great bridge between Page’s better BNL writing of the past 5 years and his more popular 90;s songwriting. The lyrics are characteristically revealing, self-deprecating and insightful. Page has the ability to spin a moment of turmoil into both hopeful and hopeless, and it is the oscillation between these two that make him such a strong songwriter. Whereas his co-BNL writer Ed Robertson either came across as too earnest or too banal-parading-as-comedic, Page strikes an excellent emotional balance when deciphering the human experience, and it’s no more apparent than on opener “A New Shore.”
“Indecision,” the second track on Page One is a classic Steven Page single– and no wonder it was chosen to promote the album. It’s actually a song written earlier with Duffy for BNL, but as the band was shifting focus to BNL-penned songs only, “Indecision” was shelved. It continues the energy of “A New Shore” seamlessly. “Clifton Springs” follows, which is one of three songs written solo by Page, and is one of the standout tracks on the album. Musically, it does not strike into any new territories, but it’s a beautiful song about regret. Page doesn’t push his voice into bravado, nor does he shy away from emotion; rather, his voice is full of world-weariness, understanding and melancholy. It’s a song that parades around as simple, but upon further listening is wildly complicated. That’s Steven Page’s charm– he speaks to so many different levels of human’s emotional experiences, and it’s through the stories he tells that one feels brought to higher levels of comprehension about their darkest and lightest corners.
Following the fantastic first three songs, Page One begins to waver a bit. “Entourage” is a song that is quite frustrating, because it goes from being an excellent melody to a really unappealing dance song. A song about fame, and rather than take an innovative approach to the topic, it’s a completely surface take. It is reminiscent of Jewel’s “Serve the Ego” (from her excellent album This Way), but whereas that song ushered in a new musical approach to her folk-driven catalog, “Entourage” just serves to shake things up, but without a really good reason. And unfortunately it is followed by one of Page’s most boring and trite songs he’s written: “Marry Me.” It’s a sophomoric take on “Life, In a Nutshell,” complete with requisite driving drums and bland electric guitar.
After the missteps of the previous two songs, Page brings the pace down a bit for “All the Young Monogamists,” which is one of the best songs he’s written. It’s one of the most gorgeous, fragile, vulnerable and cathartic song he has ever penned, and is the backbone of Page One. In his description of “Monogamists,” he writes “This is me with my guard down: A real, live love song.” For someone whose song “Call and Answer” became a benchmark of 90s emotional pop/rock, he claims “Monogamists” is his first true love song, and, well, it’s been worth the twenty year wait. The melody is haunting in that it sounds like something completely familiar (but in no way derivative), the production is incredibly intimate, and the employ of string and wind instruments against a stark acoustic guitar weaves into a stunning arrangement of emotional honesty and rawness. And when Page ends with “But I will always be true to you; yes, I will always be true to you,” it’s one of those Roland Barthes-ian punctum moments, where all of a sudden the listener feels like they’ve found the essence of the subject. In “Monogamists,” Page delivers one of the most honest and real performances of his career, and for that Page One is greatly enhanced.
The second half of the album is fairly uneven. BNL-reminiscent (and quite frankly monotonous) “She’s Trying to Save Me” is definite b-side material, while “Over Joy” is Page re-defining one of his trademark moves– writing an upbeat melody and arrangement with depressing lyrics. Glen Phillips’ background vocals add a nice timbre to the song, and as a mid-tempo rock song, “Over Joy” sounds like it could have been an excellent addition to any BNL album (quite a feat in and of itself, as their sound changed vastly over twenty years– another testament to the strength of “Over Joy”). Then Page dabbles in many different genres, between the somewhat forgettable “If You Love Me” to the big-band sexiness of “Leave Her Alone.” This is one of those songs where Page’s musical versatility really benefits his songwriting. Combining a crunching electric guitar with Prince’s horn section, he is able to pull of a song that really doesn’t fit on Page One, but on the other hand is so clearly a Steven Page song that the album would feel hollow without it. “Queen of America” is a disco-inspired song that almost sounds like a track of Cher’s Believe. It’s a great melody, but not a terribly dynamic song.
The album ends with “The Chorus Girl,” which is another Steven Page tour de force. It sounds like the follow up to both “Call and Answer,” “Jane” and “War on Drugs,”– three of BNL’s best songs (and all written by Page). Its excellent use of metaphor provides a deeply affecting space in which Page muses about the trials and tribulations of his role as songwriter when juxtaposed as a lover. It’s an incredibly personal song, without a clearly positive or negative ending, and really it’s the perfect album closer. Page strikes magic with “The Chorus Girl,” and it’s a reminder that despite the few mishaps along the way and the fairly wild shift in genre, Page One is a really great start to a (hopefully) fruitful solo career.
One thing that Page should contemplate in his move forward is his relationship with being vulnerable. In his press release, he cautions that while he was fairly introspective in writing these songs, Page One is not “a collection of diary entries.” He claims many “expected a brooding, woe-is-me album,” and while that may be true, his apprehension to investigate that aspect of his songwriting is the main downfall of Page One. In the moments where he allows himself to be vulnerable he is most successful. “A New Shore” is emotionally honest, but in no way brooding. He is able to strike the balance between introspection and upbeat pop songs, but there is a feeling that on this album he’s wary of indulging that too much, and offering instead a few songs that just are not up to his usual par in an attempt to appear more together than he is. His fans are loyal to him for a reason, and even when he writes about being at his lowest points, his genius has always been in making that rock bottom seem complex in its vacillation between hope and solemn sadness. This is a great step forward in his canon, and sets the tone well for the follow-up. It doesn’t have to be a “brooding, woe-is-me” album, but a little less pastiche would benefit his songwriting immensely.
