Mr. Hollywood Jr., 1947
Los Angeles troubadour Michael Penn offers a compelling argument here that personal obsessions can often be a songwriter's most compelling muse. An intriguing concept album that revolves around Penn's introspective take on the brave new world of post-WW II America as channeled by the thoughts of its protagonists,Mr. Hollywoodmakes little effort at recreating the era's musical aura. Instead Penn details his retro-L.A. landscape via the emotional states of his song cycle's rich cast of characters (which includes the bewildered returning vet of "Walter Reed" and the shadowy film-noir protagonist of "Room 715, The Apache"), a gambit that effectively bridges the decades: Their pensiveness and wistful anxiety seem all too contemporary. The era's technical/historical landmarks are noted by such brief, impressionistic sound pastiches as "The Transistor," "18 September" (the date the National Security Act was established) and the jaunty "Television Set Waltz." Penn's stately, melancholy way with a ballad forms a firm foundation, yet the album's two-part structural conceit (which replicates LP sides) and such adventurous fare as the hypnotic, ethnically indeterminate dirge "Mary Lynn," "Bad Sign"'s lush pop-blues and the jangly, cautious optimism of "On Automatic" insure it never rests on nostalgia or the merely familiar.--Jerry McCulley