Drawing titled A Slicker by George Hand Wright, 1918
Crazy for You took me by surprise. I'd heard some of the Best Coast singles, and with a few exceptions ("Angsty", "That's the Way Boys Are") they hadn't made much of an impression. But I'm all about buying "summer" albums in the summertime, and it's hard to argue with an album that has a map of California, palm trees, a sunset, and a kitten on the cover. Crazy for You isn't the "second coming" or anything, but it exceeded my expectations in a couple ways.
I expected fuzzy, reverby girl-group pop on Crazy for You, and that's what the album delivers. What I hadn't anticipated was how much I like Beth Cosentino's voice on this record. The album opens with "Boyfriend", and my first thought was, "Wow - she sounds a lot more like Liz Phair than I expected." But the Phair comparison only works on that song and "Summer Mood" - she does a Jenny Lewis thing on most of the other songs (this was more in line with what I expected). On a couple songs, however, her voice bears a surprising resemblance to Neko Case - she's not a belter in the same league as Case, obviously, but there's a lot of similarity there. Listen to "Our Deal" or especially "Each and Everyday" and tell me I'm wrong.
The songwriting on Crazy for You is decent - the lyrics are what you'd expect from a young woman whose hobbies include pining for boys, playing with her kitten, and smoking large amounts of marijuana. The song structures are impressively ambitious in places, though, and this is hard to do with retro-pop without muddying things too much. Cosentino limits herself to a cool-sounding tempo change on a few songs, including the dirge-like intro to bonus track "When I'm With You" and the dreamy coda on "Each and Everyday". Crazy for You just barely breaks the 30-minute mark, but it easily accomplishes its mission in this time, setting a nice "summer mood" for chilling out and drinking lemonade.
"When I'm With You" by Best Coast
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