{"id":21986,"date":"2021-11-18T05:30:51","date_gmt":"2021-11-18T10:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=21986"},"modified":"2021-11-18T11:52:55","modified_gmt":"2021-11-18T16:52:55","slug":"album-review-bill-lloyd-working-the-long-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2021\/11\/18\/album-review-bill-lloyd-working-the-long-game\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Bill Lloyd — Working the Long Game"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"While it\u2019s true that Bill Lloyd first came to prominence as half of the c&w duo Foster and Lloyd \u2013 an outfit that did some fine work in that genre \u2013 today his reputation centers primarily around his solo work. And that music is much more accurately described as (oh, here it comes) power pop. But highly melodic pop rock is a better \u2013 if perhaps wordier \u2013 descriptor for what he does. His debut release, Feeling the Elephant<\/em>, was released in 1987 when he was still working with Foster.<\/p>\n

That record contained the swoonworthy ear candy that is \u201cLisa Anne.\u201d With lyrics like \u201cI\u2019ve got a hole in my life the size of your apartment,\u201d it was clear that Lloyd could deliver hooks, superb melody and intelligent lyrics. Those qualities set him far above the power pop pack, but he didn\u2019t prove to be a particularly prolific artist: by 2004 he had only released three more solo albums. That\u2019s less than an album every four years, more the pace for Boston or Fleetwood Mac (ask your grandparents, kids).<\/p>\n

That same year, Lloyd did make a fine album with musical peer Jamie Hoover, best known as both a producer and member of The SpongeTones. (Tangentially speaking of the \u2018Tones, their \u201cChristmasland\u201d and Lloyd\u2019s beyond-lovely \u201cUnderneath the Christmas Tree\u201d are highlights of a wonderful yet overlooked Holiday-themed various artists CD from 1991 called Yuletunes: <\/i>A Collection of Alternative Pop Chirstmas Songs<\/i>.)<\/p>\n

And to be fair, Lloyd wasn\u2019t just sitting around; he was one-fourth of supergroup The Sky Kings, who cut an album set for release in 1997 but had to wait until Rhino Handmade finally unearthed the tapes for limited release in 2014 (by which time they had long since broken up).<\/p>\n

Happily \u2013 and nearing relevance to the subject at hand \u2013 Bill Lloyd has been on a relative tear in the years since. After another quiet period album-wise, starting with 2012\u2019s Boy King of Tokyo<\/i>, he has been releasing at a pace closer to one record every two years (not even counting compilations).<\/p>\n

And in acknowledgment of the facts that (a) those who appreciate his music ought to have easier access to it and (b) his music has rarely received the sort of promotional push it so rightly deserves, he has set about making select items form his back catalog available once again. Spyderpop Records, a power pop label now aligned with like-minded Big Stir Records, has reissued Bill Lloyd\u2019s 2018 album, Working the Long Game<\/i>.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019m here to tell you that it may well be his finest work yet. Twelve songs make up the album, and while they\u2019re a variety of Lloyd originals, co-writes and even a couple of deep-dive covers, the songs are consistent in most every other regard. When he works with another songwriter, as he does with Graham Gouldman of 10cc on \u201cWhat Time Won\u2019t Heal\u201d, or Aaron Lee Tasjan (\u201cGo-to-Girl\u201d), or Cheap Trick\u2019s Tom Petersson (\u201cYesterday\u201d), he\u2019s combining his sharply honed skills and talents with some of the best.<\/p>\n

There aren\u2019t any weak tracks at all on this set. The hooks are razor sharp, the playing and arranging are note-perfect, the vocals are sublime and filled with whatever emotion the particular song needs. It would do a disservice to the care and effort of any song to praise another above it, so instead I\u2019ll simply encourage my readers to get this disc and luxuriate in some pop perfection.<\/p>\n

I can’t help but think that if most purveyors of so-called power pop heard this disc, they’d change careers. He does it so well as to render the efforts of many others wholly unnecessary. I\u2019d go right ahead and name it my Favorite New Album of 2021 right here and now, but due to its reissue status, it\u2019s disqualified on a technicality. Do expect to see it ranked among my short list of Favorite Reissue\/Archival\/Compilation sets when I publish it in late December.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While it\u2019s true that Bill Lloyd first came to prominence as half of the c&w duo Foster and Lloyd \u2013 an outfit that did some fine work in that genre […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21987,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[51,55,62,64,65],"tags":[2836],"class_list":["post-21986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pop","category-powerpop","category-rawk","category-reissue","category-review","tag-bill-lloyd","cat-51-id","cat-55-id","cat-62-id","cat-64-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21986"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22027,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21986\/revisions\/22027"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}