A Slight Delay

Mike Doughty, Golden Delicious. ATO Records.

Anyone that’s been in “the business” long enough, whether it’s music, art, literature, or anything else creative, gets it sooner or later: someone’s going to tell them, either face to face or in print, that they liked them better when they [fill in the blank].  By that measure, Mike Doughty has arrived.

Golden Delicious doesn’t immediately sound like Soul Coughing, nor does it sound entirely like any of the singer’s previous solo efforts, Skittish/Rockity Roll, or even his “proper” ATO debut, Haughty Melodic. And for that, he’s taken a bit of a beating. Some of the critics, it seems, liked him better when he’d slipped his moorings/was still addicted to drugs/still sounded like the bastard stepchild of Roni Size and Billy Strayhorn.

Tough.

Yes, on the surface, this is a much sunnier album. It doesn’t have the drum n’ bass flourishes and bent atmospherics that characterized Soul Coughing, and it’s certainly more polished than his earlier solo offerings. And that, to my ears anyway, ain’t necessarily a bad thing. (more…)