Ivy, Long Distance
Saying bad things about an Ivy CD is sort of like strangling babies for not being cute enough. There’s something just not right about it. They’re so.... well, likable, darn it. They write intelligent pop songs, peppered here and there with the odd flute or horn section. They’re catchy, not too fast and not too slow. Dominique Durand, who looks like a less maniacal version of Catherine Keener, has a voice that makes one think of things that are pretty and French without being cutesy. All in all it’s a formula that can’t fail.
Only, and it’s breaking my heart to say this, it does.
Maybe it’s because Apartment Life, their last CD, was so good. The way that when you put it on for the first ten seconds you thought you were listening to Fleetwood Mac; the horn section in This Is The Day (the smash hit single featured in There’s Something About Mary, according to the sticker); the end-of-the-summer exhaustion in Get Out Of The City. The whole album is good, from start to finish. Add to that L’Anamour, their track on 1999’s Pop Romantique compilation. Their song was the best one, and it was very nearly the best album of the year. And add to the fact that two-thirds of Ivy are also two-thirds of Fountains of Wayne.
So maybe my hopes were too high for Long Distance. If any other band had released this, I’d probably go around calling it wonderful. Lucy Doesn’t Love You, with it’s Bacharachian horn section, sounds like really good cruise ship music. Edge of the Ocean is nice and languid, with it’s sha-la-la-la-la-la-la chorus, while Midnight Sun is like the more fun-loving cousin of Belle and Sebastian’s Don’t Leave The Light On Baby. Worry About You sounds like somebody singing over an Aimee Mann song, sort of like Aimee Mann herself did on Cigarettes and Red Vines.
None of it is bad, let me say that again. I don’t think Ivy could be bad. It’s just.... disappointing. None of it has the pizzazz of This Is The Day, say, or I’ve Got A Feeling. (Apartment Life, by the way, was actually their third album. I haven’t heard the first two.) On Blame It On Yourself and Lucy Doesn’t Love You, the two most exciting numbers on the CD, you still don’t manage to get very excited about anything. With the latter song they apppear to be writing some kind of party anthem, but it’s the kind of party where nobody was dancing much to begin with.
I guess it’s their summer vacation album. The album art on Apartment Life showed them looking pretty and bored in an anonymous New York apartment. On Long Distance they’ve gone to the beach, where they relax and continue to look pretty. (Dominique Durand is really quite lovely; wish I’d gotten to see their free show at Newbury Comics last month....) It’s an easy-listening album, but, like so much other easy-listening music, you wonder whether or not you need it there at all.
B-
