Search - Scruffs :: Midtown

A Fabulous star in the forgotten power pop constellation

Bachelier | Ile de France | 09/19/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The commercial failure and critical success of Alex Chilton and Big Star is now a story so well known that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame telephone call, induction, and display is simply the last chapter of the Dostoyevskian tale. Add to the pile of tragic and undeserved obscurity of Memphis power pop The Scruffs. A worthy pile, it is also inhabited by Big Star, of course, and Tommy Hull, Ricky Branyan, and Randy Chertow's "The Randy Band," and one-time Rolling Stone auditioner, uber-guitarist Robert Johnson (no, not that Robert Johnson, the other one, of "Close Personal Friend" fame), and also tragically, The Grifters. While "Midtown" does not feature the classic Scruffs lineup of Stephen Burns, Dave Branyan, Ricky Branyan, and Zeph Paulson, enough of Burns crystal clear expression is available to satisfy the most linear of Scruffs fans who previously were only familiar with "Wanna Meet...?" From the very first track "Things are Green" we encounter an artfully constructed pop song with lyrics and pacing that in a just world would push everything else off the radio. And the album just gets better after that. This record should be in everyone's collection, for without it you only know a single chapter of the lost generation of Memphis power pop, a musical movement that remains so powerful to this day that virtually no guitar song with a Rickenbacker jangle guitar riff doesn't own its very conception to these pioneers."