Angie Aparo: The American
During the grunge era, when every band was trying to sound like Nirvana, the airwaves became saturated with music that, as it wavered between anger and ennui, somehow managed to blur into one great undigestible lump. After all the money had been sucked out of the Seattle sound, what would be next on the auction block? Unexpectedly, as what used to be called "alternative" veered away from Cobain's shadow, the mainstream bent to meet it, and we're now in the middle of nothing less than a renaissance of pop music.
Not "pop" in the sense of inoffensive Top 40 crap created by producers rather than musicians, but "pop" in the sense of well-crafted songs that stick in your mind well after you've stopped listening to them. Songs that you want to hear again and again. An art form that owes so much to the Beatles that many artists who practice it are unfairly dubbed "Beatlesque." At long last, after years of drought, you can take a drive without grabbing a handful of CDs first, relying only on the radio for your tunes.
Pop music never actually went away, but as the mainstream turned to dance music and rap in the '80s, less and less of it got airplay. Radio lost interest in Thomas Dolby when he stopped being a mad scientist, despite the fact that he's matured into quite a sophisticated songwriter. I've never heard anything from Toy Matinee's stunning self-titled album on the radio, and Adam Schmitt's Island debut, World So Bright, went undeservedly unnoticed by 99% of the listening public. But the Dave Matthews Band, Ben Folds Five, and others have brought pop back to the airwaves. Some of it is derivative and uninteresting, and some of the best (such as Athenaeum's Radiance) still doesn't get the exposure it deserves, but there's something delirious about a catchy tune, and I'm just glad more of them are being played on the radio.
Angie Aparo and his album The American stand out as an example of this happy trend. Contrary to our comfortable stereotypes, Angie is male (short for Angelo). That's your first surprise. The picture in the booklet reveals that his head is completely shaven but for an evil-looking strip of whiskers on his chin, and there's mischief in his eyes. Based on his looks, you might expect industrial, goth, or electronica, but what you actually get is some of the most delectable songwriting and singing to grace the airwaves in the past decade. That's your second.
The surprises keep coming as the CD spins. Like Aparo himself, virtually every track has something unexpected, something that makes you sit up and say, "Hey, now that's cool." It might be the catchy guitar figure that opens the album's first track, "Green Into Gold." It might be the elliptical lyrics of the second track, "Spaceship" -- the album's first single, an arresting track that's sure to attract discerning radio listeners to Aparo's brand of pop. The third track, "Hush," begins with a sliding, looping synthesizer riff. There are three tracks with strings and one, unexpectedly, with a subdued brass section. Every song is memorable, every song is unique, and yet every song is indelibly stamped with Aparo's style. There are no tracks you'll want to skip. There are no highlights, because every song is great.
Still, "Spaceship" is noteworthy for the spotlight it puts on Aparo's voice. Even distorted by producer Matt Serletic, the way it snakes around, above, and under the melody is itself a treat. You know that pitch-shifting trick that's sometimes employed to make it sound like the singer's voice is sliding around in a way no human voice ever could? There are spots on "Spaceship" where it sounds almost as if the same is being done to Aparo's voice, but on closer listening it seems that Aparo (singing in multitracked harmony with himself) has simply arranged the lead and harmony parts to give a similar impression, with the assistance of a half-swallowed yodel reminiscent of Garth Brooks. (Come to think of it, Aparo's beardlet actually looks a little like the one Brooks wears as Chris Gaines.)
Aparo is Southern by birth, Italian by heritage, and honed his songwriting skills in Nashville, New York City, and points between. For this reason, his bio says, 90% of his songs are written in the car! The album was recorded in Atlanta, Nashville, and Miami with a variety of players (including producer Serletic) laying down as many as forty tracks a day on top of basic groovebox and guitar foundations laid down by Aparo. The finished product reflects its creator's diverse influences, with a sound that lives up to the album's title.
Of course, there's the obligatory hidden track, which actually does appear (unnunmbered) on the album's track listing. Given the other surprises Aparo brings to this record, is it really any shock that this "secret" track is really in fact the album's title track, or that it's hidden right in the open? Shades of "The Purloined Letter!"
The American is an Enhanced CD, which should be an added treat. Unfortunately, it's not; the only real multimedia content is a brief "trailer" for the album (containing an excerpt from "Spaceship," of course) with text telling you it's a timeless message that is exactly what you need to hear. In other words, marketing to try to get you to buy an album you've already bought. There's a file that tells you how to troubleshoot the CD if you have problems with it and links to Aparo's Web site and that of the various record companies involved in the release. And that's it. No full-length "Spaceship" music video, or a bio, or an interview. They might as well have left the multimedia "content" off the CD entirely.
Aside from that minor quibble, this is the kind of musical treat that makes you wonder what exactly you did right to deserve it. Although history shows us that quality music from new artists quickly ends up in cutout bins, this is one of those rare records that you should pay full price for simply to encourage the record companies to let the artist make more like it. Snap it up and enjoy it now. I suspect it's going to be the soundtrack to my summer.
-- Jerry Kindall
