Rockin' Our Turntable: Jarvis Cocker
By Tankboy in Arts & Entertainment on Jun 2, 2009 5:20PM
Jarvis Cocker's Further Complications was recorded right here in Chicago with favorite son and studio egghead Steve Albini engineering. It's a sexy beast of an album, one that trades in the gentler strokes of his solo debut for a rougher, raspy, well-fucked feel. Cocker brings together Mick Jagger's swagger with David Bowie's breadth and range and makes it all his own to create a white boy blues with swagger and stomp.
Cocker has always been particularly talented at creating nuanced and delicious little narrative strings in his lyrics, and he seems particularly sharp on this collection of songs, even if they all share the same subject; Cocker is looking to get some, by any means necessary. What makes this all so entertaining, and gratifying, is that the narrator in each of his songs seems wholly aware that he's not the sexual Adonis he puts himself forth as. What kind of sub-genre is this? Maybe we could call it the impotent come-on. On "Leftovers" Cocker croons, "And so I fall upon your neck, just like a vampire, yeah like a vampire, who'll faint at the sight of blood!" The self-deprecation has the unusual effect of actually bolstering the narrator's libido and making his entreaties sound, well, actually enticing.
Cocker maintains this unlikely balancing act through the entire album, climaxing with "You're In My Eyes (Discosong)," a track that blunts the white boy blues leading up to it with a healthy dose of blue-eyed soul. It's at this point that the raffish cad makes way for the emotionally vulnerable loverman, afraid of losing more than just a bed-mate. This revelation helps put Cocker's earlier rutting into a more delicate context, revealing the fear of inadequacy buried beneath the bravado. The hints were there all along, but the big reveal provides the final flourish, and delicately paints the finishing touches on Cocker's strongest work in over a decade.