REVIEW: Jude, No One Is Really Beautiful (Maverick)
- Chris Hill
An olio of odd jobs and attendance at three universities has given Jude Christodal a wealth of experience to mine for the thirteen songs on his major label debut. Singing with confidence and panache, Jude delivers the goods - worldly observations on envy, betrayal, love, and beauty - combining a variety of moods, all linked by his strong voice and witty writing.
Jude deftly uses love's spectrum for thematic grist. On "I'm Sorry Now", he sings of soured love, against a bouncy piano beat. The plaintive chorus repeats "I wish you wished I wished you love." In "Brad and Suzy", the only song not written entirely by Jude, he alternates speaking with a pure falsetto, to display the truth that envy underscores disdain. A catalog- perfect couple, Brad and Suzy are inseparable, and inspire his longing to know such uncomplicated surety. ("I wish that I was stuck with someone/I wish that I was half of a two").
"Battered, Broken" has the singer crashing against the carefully constructed walls of a guarded woman in need of love - "The sadness inside you was lost on exactly no one/There's nothing heroic or stoic in being a mime".
The winsome, spare "I Do" is my favorite cut. A "what if?" contemplation, it's also a letting-go song, as a wedding invitation keys old memories and regrets, yet inspires his wish that she know a life and love she couldn't find with him. It hits a chord touched by songs like Harry Chapin's "Taxi" or "Nobody" by the Replacements.
"You Mama You", the album opener, has rapid, scattershot vocals segueing to a bittersweet slower chorus ("Sometimes I call my lady mama/Just to feel at home for awhile"), as Jude bemoans the rarity of unconditional love in his life. After trading "Mellencamp towns" for West Coast sunshine, he's discovered he's lost something in the transition.
He mocks superficiality in the pointed "Out of L.A.", offering images of a man with "Slicked-back hair shirt to his thigh/Import silk slave labor dyed" and an equally vacuous, though beautiful, woman as representative reasons to flee the city. Another song to add to the love/hate L.A. ode catalog. "Charlie Says" also turns the magnifying glass on the image- oriented, as competition in the male modeling world inures one such model to state "no one is really beautiful/They're all just mediocre men of the hour". Jealousy or truth? You make the call.
Cavalier male behavior is targeted on the funky, radio- friendly "Rick James", where an egotistical history of using and discarding women is lanced ("Don't be fooled/Don't be flattered/ It's not like you ever mattered/Not to me/Rick James was the original super freak"). "The Asshole Song" sees the same egoist give his explanation for his self-centered world, and closes the album. It's an interesting choice, as "goodbye, I'm an asshole" fades from the speakers, it draws a last setlist tune cry for an encore.
Jude pulled in a "who's who" of talent to produce the record. The musician credits are equally filled with well known names: Benmont Tench (the Heartbreakers), Michael Ward & Rami Jaffe (the Wallflowers), Paul Kimble (Grant Lee Buffalo), and Andy Prieboy (Wall of Voodoo and solo artist), among many others. It's an impressive show of support, and justified in the final result - uptempo and melancholy numbers comfortably resting together on a memorable debut album.
