A Piece of What You Need

This is classic Teddy Thompson and well worth the purchase.
Two complaints though. There are absolutely no liner notes with the CD - aside from listing the song titles. The CD sleeve invites you to go to the website but the credits are shown there in such a complicated way. (I wanted to print them and put them with the CD).
Second complaint... what is the point in having a hidden track (The Everly's 'Price Of Love') that to access requires you to fast forward 10 minutes along from the end of the final listed track. The easier solution (if you must have a hidden track) is to add it as an extra track, and thereby is readily accessible. Great album - sloppy finishing work.

I have all of Teddy Thompson's albums and was really looking forward to this one, but I'm disappointed. The voice is still great, but I'm tired of all the self-absorption. I think Teddy would be a better storyteller if he wrote about subjects other than himself. My advice: get your groove and sense of humor back, and stay away from Rufus Wainwright-like arrangements. Still love you, though.

Teddy Thompson's new set "A Piece of What You Need" starts out with one of the best one-two-three song selections. The opener "The Things I Do" is a hook-laden track with an addictive melody, Thompson's gorgeous and expressive voice, and his trademark wit in the lyric, "It's getting harder & harder to live with myself, the things I do." It's Teddy's trick that feeling bad can sound this good. "What's This?!!" arrives with punch, a ripping stutter-style guitar lead, and Teddy's tremendous vocals, "Oh sh*t, Oh sh*t, am I happy or something? Is it you? Is it me? Is it us? Is it we?" It's another totally addictive track. "In My Arms" is also a beautiful track with the pace mellowed & Thompson's vocals silky and caressing. "Can't Sing Straight" & "Jonathan's Book" are also favorites of mine. Teddy Thompson continues to deliver excellent music on a CD that is sure to hit many "best of 2008" lists. Enjoy!

As other reviewers have noted, Teddy Thompson's latest effort A PIECE OF WHAT YOU NEED finds the Brit-born/NY based singer-songwriter craftily playing every side of his lonely, self-loathing persona, and all with the lacerating wit in lyrics for which the younger Thompson is justly celebrated. The horror of actually finding happiness that opens the insanely catchy "What's This?!!" eventually gives way, many songs later, to the mordantly funny lament of "Turning the Gun on Myself", with several interesting and well-observed stops in between. Thompson's incredible voice remains one of the finest in contemporary music and though PIECE doesn't showcase it as well as his previous release, 2007's now classic UP FRONT AND DOWN LOW - mostly covers of C&W chestnuts with one tremendous original - PIECE'S rich, multilayered production still makes a rich setting for Thompson's vocals. ("Jonathan's Book", with a cinematic opening, finds Thompson flirting with a Beatles vibe, to good effect.) The CD package gets a shwack for not including any notes or credits - listeners have to go to Thompson's Web site for those - and for burying one of the albums best tracks ("Price of Love") many, many minutes after the last listed one, the title tune. Anyone who left before the very end of IRON MAN will know what I mean, so have patience. These are minor quibbles compared to the true work of art that Thompson's achieved here. If you don't have any of his CDs, start here. The title really does say it all.

Teddy's in love.

Or, knowing how sly Teddy Thompson can be, I should say: At the very least, his persona is.

Either way, this is very good news.

"Happy lies ahead," Teddy Thompson predicted when I interviewed him in the spring of 2007.

And then he hedged: "But you never know --- it could turn nasty."

If you're in the Teddy Thompson cult --- and it's ridiculous that a cult is still all there is, because this guy is about as major as it gets --- you know that's classic Teddyspeak. He's invariably divided. His own worst enemy. Shockingly self-loathing, a genius at sabotaging relationships. And, of course, hopelessly romantic.

He writes pop songs that get crazy-glued to your memory, but he delights in project like a CD of country songs; he can make a Leonard Cohen song sound fresh. For a child of veteran musicians, he's way too articulate, ironic and self-effacing --- way too complicated --- for the business he's in.

In the past, he's been that character. Now, in "A Piece of What You Want", he confronts that guy with thrilling directness.

As you might expect, the CD starts with the singer stumbling: "It's getting harder and harder to live with myself/ I'm getting weaker in mental and physical health." He's "one night out away from the analyst's couch." But disgust is, of course, shot through with irony: "My standards are slipping day by day/ I'll sleep with anyone who gets in my way." The punch line: "No one's coming to save me now."

But wait! The second song is a total reversal: "What's this, what's this/Am I happy or something?" The voices in his head say "this will never work" but this time he's not running scared, this time it's all good. And while his arms are "not an easy place to be", he does grasp that it's hard to get lost there. So far, so great.

But wait yet again! This is Teddy Thompson --- by the fourth song, he's screwed it up. And feeling awful: "I'm minutes away, I'm taking the next train/ Don't know what I was thinking."

And so it goes, back and forth, a novel told in monologues. Or, better, a song cycle that, by turns, invokes Johnny Cash ("Maybe I'll learn to walk the line"), big band music, the powerhouse anthems of a Springsteen and much, much more. He can rock, he can boogie, he can steal your woman with a broken-hearted ballad --- musically, the CD burns hot and shiny.

And smart. Above all, smart. The kids who like simple and stupid are gonna wonder why Mom and Dad are listening to this English guy. Their loss. "A Piece of What You Want" is music for grown-ups who can still tap their toes, raise a fist, confront demons, hate phonies and come back for more. Very simply, it's a small masterpiece.

Who said happiness kills creativity?