Michael Penn recorded the first great album of the 21st century*, but the truly remarkable detail is that he did it in 1989.
"March" was singer-songwriter Penn's debut, and the one song most anyone still remembers is the opening track, "No Myth." It's a memorable cut musically and lyrically, but mostly for the unusually literate-yet-catchy phrase, "What if I I were Romeo in black jeans/What if I was Heathcliff, it's no myth." It peaked at 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 and snagged Penn the not-very-coveted MTV Award for Best New Artist.
The sepia-tinted video sets the stage for the song and the ten tracks that follow.
Aimee Mann — who would meet, fall in love with, and marry Penn, later said, "By 1990, everything on the radio was starting to be Whitney Houston, Taylor Dayne, Tina Turner—it was very pop. Then Michael Penn comes out with this Beatles-esque, melodic song, but still with a little bit of a big snare drum sound. I was like, 'Finally, somebody broke through with an actual song.'"
"You may think I’m saying this because I’m a nice person who is supportive of their spouse," she added. "That's absolutely not true. I'm not that supportive."
Heh.
Two other cuts, "This And That" and "Brave New World," made brief appearances on the Modern Rock chart, which at the time was a virtual ghetto for "weird" acts like The Cure or Love and Rockets.
But what gets me about "March" isn't the subtleties of Penn's gorgeous lyrics or the Beatles-worthy melodies and production values. It's just how far ahead of its time the album was — filled from side to side with prescient fin de siècle anomie.
My favorite track is probably "Brave New World," a musical road trip through pre-post-apocalyptic America — and, yes, "pre-post" is no typo. It's a shame that Penn's label wasn't prescient enough to hire young director David Fincher (who was still making music videos at the time) to do a video for "Brave New World," so here it is without.
Here's the text of that first verse for your amazement and enjoyment.Baby's busy hiding in the bassinet
Wondering if the Third World War had started yet.
I told her I was pulling up and heading west.
She said she would have come but she was overdressed.
So I sent a picture postcard of a Midwest bank.
She wrote me that she showed it to her new friend Frank
Who noticed in a window on the 19th floor
A guy my age about to prove that man can't soar.
And he would also like to know If I could just check around before I left this town
For slow-mo footage of the tumbledown.
Nobody in 1989 was writing Mad-Max-is-coming-to-America music like this. We were basking in the afterglow of Ronald Reagan's "Morning in America" and our impending victory over the Soviets in the Cold War. It was a glorious time, but Penn somehow saw the darkness lurking just around the turn of the century.
What struck me about "March" in 1989 — I was only 20 at the time — was how grown-up and serious Penn's lyrics were, and how he managed to package them in such unexpectedly slick and unusual music.
"March" isn't all gloom about failing relationships despite lines like, "She blocked her eyes and drew the curtains/With knots I've got yet to untie" from "No Myth." Or "Maybe it's a case of hardness of heart/But I'm down for the count/And there's got to be someway/To clear out whatever keeps us apart" from "This & That."
It isn't even all doom like this bit from "Half Harvest."
So move out of your bed of roses now
I'm putting in a bed of nails
Because missiles, guns, and rubber hoses
Will land me in jail
This paradise is slowly crumbing
From here to Wilshire Boulevard
But the rubble over which you are stumbling
Just isn't that hard
I say that because Penn wrapped up "March" with a '50s-tinged, spirited rocker called "Evenfall."
Sure, your relationships are failing and the world is coming apart — but let's go out with a bang, not a whimper.
"March" is available for streaming in CD-quality lossless on Apple Music and in limited bandwidth-friendly compressed MP3 on Spotify.
Previously for Our VIPs: Underappreciated Albums: 'Sinatra & Swingin' Brass'
*The second great album of the 21st century was Donald Fagen's near-future adventure, "Kamakiriad," released in 1993.
