The Real Thing

If you don't know who Jon Brion is, go look him up right now. It doesn't matter where you look him up, because he is practically ominpresent. Besides being a 90's pop-rock band veteran, he has built up a reputation as one of the most gifted and musical producers, composers, and singer-songwriters around today. Most would would probably know him as the composer and arranger of such mainstream movie soundtracks as Boogie Nights, I Heart Huckabees, Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Others would unknowingly know him as the main producers for artists such as Aimee Mann, Rufus Wainwright, The Eels, Fiona Apple, Brad Mehldau, and most recently as co-producer for Kanye West. And yet the most privileged listeners would know him as A) a member of the one-off 90's pop band The Grays and B) the composer, lyricist, arranger, producer and engineer of his album Meaningless.

The beauty of 'Meaningless', to me, is that one cannot tell throughout the album that these songs are ones that Brion wrote the night before or has been working on for years. In the first sense it is because he has such a natural melodic intuition (and his other projects have all been so consistent), that one would not be surprised of an average daily output of such a creative person if pushed to create an album. However, in the second sense, this album is so well realized and produced and arranged that it would be deperessing for any other living musician to hear. Brion masters a tradition while maintaining originality at the same time. If 'Meaningless' has any drawback at all, it's that it doesn't quite show the full potential and ability of it's creator. If you really want to know the real Brion, you'll have to check out his production work, his soundtrack work, his band work, all in addition to this solo outing. He's (naturally) incredibly busy right now, but we should hope he has enough time to come out with another album of his own in the near future.