Chapter 12 - David Duchovny - Hell or Highwater

Chapter 12 

And here we are on Labor Day with a thing i never even thought to imagine might exist. Obviously some people know it exists because otherwise i wouldn't be holding it in my hand and wondering what the hell i'm about to listen to. I'm not one of those people, and statistically speaking i doubt you're one of those people either. I cannot even begin to fathom the possibility that this album sold even thousands of copies. 400 at most. Friends, Countries, Roaming Men, the truth is out there, David Duchovny made an album. Yeah, only David Duchovny i know about, that David Duchovny. 

Which of course begs the question, what in the wide world of alien sex addicts is a David Duchovny album going to turn out to be? Does he strum a guitar and sing crappy Country? Is he an accomplished Jazz Pianist like H. Jon Benjamin? Is he about to Rod McKuen up my earballs 'til they burst? Does he beatbox while playing Trombone? I [clap emoji] am [clap emoji] terrified [clap emoji] !! 

I think we can make a few assumptions, though. It's not gonna be Metal or Techno. Hell or Highwater is probably about getting through this adventure called life in some not exactly optimistic motivational kitten poster type way. So, some sort of Rock, possibly Country tinged, maybe even ocassionally jazzy, what with all the black and white, arty stairwell/studio photos. One thing is for certain, David Duchovny wrote all the songs and paid for the whole shebang, because that's what Executive Producer means. So if i have to make an official guess, it's probably something like Wilco and My Morning Jacket and Tom Petty all muddled together. Maybe not spoken word, but a fair bit of intangibly emotional talk-singing in the voice of David Duchovny. 

Alright, what's this actually classified as? Folk/Alternative Rock. See? What did i tell you? It's also from 2015, just so we're all on the same page with the musical vacuum this thing tried to fill. Alright, enough stalling, let's rip off the bandaid. He hired a bunch of Berkely grads as the band, so at least the music will be played pretty. 

We can't though, i mean this isn't a normal album, it's a vanity project from a famous rich guy, and i think we have to approach it like that. Around about Y2k1, David Duchovny started learning to play guitar. That's awesome. After 4 years or so he was like "i wanna make an album." I'm all in, the fact that you're a successful actor has no bearing on your aspirations, and i'm out here constantly saying more people should do what they want to do while actually spending money to do it. So, he wrote a bunch of songs. Most people say writing lyrics is the hardest part, but David Duchovny found writing the actual music to be harder. Not surprising, he's not a musician. But he persevered. Now, unlike you and me, David Duchovny can afford to hire a great band. He hired an actual band i've never heard of called Weather. He also hired a vocal coach so he didn't walk in and unknowingly act like an ass. He found some label that would actually put their name on it and logistically move physical copies around, and that's how you make an album, same as me. You and me are at a disadvantage money wise, but he's not. If i had the money i'd do more of it too. That's what my books were, albeit within my more down to earth budget. So, long story short, how could you possibly approach reviewing it the same way you'd review Lou Reed or Styx? You're really just deciding if David Duchovny is allowed to make an album just because he wanted to. Of course he is, he's stimulating the economy the way rich people are supposed to. Whether or not you like the sound of the result is your own problem, not his. I'm going to enjoy it in some way or another, it could be awesomly bad or awesomely awesome or awesomely generic or awesomely weird. Critics who reviewed it tended to take the approach that David Duchovny said his influences were Bob Dylan, Wilco, Leonard Cohen, R.E.M., and the Flaming Lips, and that's exactly what the result sounds like, David Duchovny emulating those guys in his David Duchovny voice without much in the way of originality. Better than pretty much any other actor turned singer, so he should be proud of that at least... wait, are you talking like Eddie Murphy, Johnny Depp, Bruce Willis? If that's the comparison, then sure. Keaunu Reeves plays bass in the band Dogstar, do they suck? Jared Leto? 30 Seconds to Mars may not be everyone's favorite, but you're telling me David Duchovny is better than that? 

Obviously none of that's fair, you can copy and paste that criticism into a review of pretty much anyone. We're better than that kind of backhanded cop-out. We need to listen to it as what does David Duchovny have to say about David Duchovny? Does he think he's the same person we think he is? He probably won't explicitly write a song about that, we have to invent that meaning for ourselves. Is he mopey, is he a jerk, is he intelligent and thoughtful, or is he a 4 year old building a lego sculpture out of tropes, cliches, and rote ideologies? I'll happily hate on it if there's a reason, but not just because i can. Now i think we can officially proceed to find out. 

Well, Let It Rain is completely lovely. I'm not looking forward to 55 more minutes of this, but that's my shortening attention span, not any negative reflection of the music. If you told me this was just a Weather album, i wouldn't question it at all. It's country-tinged Alt-Rock. There are some incredibly awkward lyrics. For example, "in the test of our love... yeah, if it's multiple choice i gotta mark none/all of the above." Terrible as that is, it's unique. 4 songs in and this isn't in any way bad. It all works with the concept, which in case you missed the memo is "come hell or high water." 

Now, there is one thing working against him, and that's that he is enunciating way too clearly. I don't mean he needs to sound drunk or stoned to be effective, i just mean there's a clearly disconnected difference between what he's singing and the way he's singing it. These aren't detached, observational songs, these are inner-monologue type expressions of feelings delivered like a book report. Except for that, you honestly can't tell that this isn't just a random Alt Rock album, bass solos and everything. You might be able to figure out it's David Duchovny if i just randomly played something from it, but aside from the way too upfront and completely dry vocals, and the WTF switchup for track 9, this just sounds like a band. A good one. 

And we end with my least favorite album trope of the '10s, a massively big Rock 'til you drop finale followed by an acoustic version of the first track for an epilogue. I expect it from butt rock like Breaking Benjamin, but it's not actually meaningful as an album structure. It literally screams "now we'll strip away the facade of being a band for an intimate moment of an even more obviously artificial cliche. That's clearly the opposite of why you did it that way, so just stop doing it altogether. Last, but not least, this album is too goddamned long. 

You know what that means? It means David Duchovny isn't special, he's every dude who has ever tried to make an album from the perspective of having no idea how to make an album. So, he does what everyone does, and just copies a thing people say to do because "it works." You know what i'm talking about, it's stuff like track 2 cooldowns, the "after the show lonely piano version" ending, a musical smack across the face in the middle of the second half, 5 too many songs that you might never get another chance to release on a different album, these are all "i'm gonna make an album" tropes that just garner a responding "why bother?" Why would anybody need or want David Duchovny's version of Corporate Album, The Thing We Decided The Market Wants? You're the guy paying for it, why do the same thing as any other band that can't afford to themselves? It turns out to not be a David Duchovny album at all, it's just a cookie cutter 3/4 of a CD's capacity album with songs David Duchovny wrote cut and pasted into it. Nobody wants that, that's why most people stopped buying albums and we're right back to one hit wonders and endless playlists of sound-alike songs you might also like. 

So there you go, it's just a generic vanity album for the sake of name recognition. Remarkably underwhelming. Welp, back to work tomorrow. Maybe i'll give this thing an epilogue, maybe i won't. I guess we'll find out if/when i do it. Toodles.

Epilogue