It's New to Me: Once Upon a Dream by the Rascals (1968)

Illustration by Janet Laura Scott from Elizabeth Gordon's The Turned-Into's, 1920

Now here's an interesting album that hasn't been discussed to death, and I feel like I can say something informative about it. Here's what I have to say - the Rascals' Once Upon a Dream is RIDICULOUS. But what would you expect when a garage-rock-turned-soul band (up to this time called the "Little Rascals") decides to make more grown-up, psychedelic album in the mode of Sgt. Pepper's? It's a bewildering mish-mash of R'n'B, blue-eyed-soul, rock, and over-the-top balladry, glued together with sound effects and studio magic. And Once Upon a Dream is probably the only US psych-rock album that charted higher in the R'n'B charts than the pop charts, due to the Rascals' good-sized crossover audience.

Once Upon a Dream's songs are all originals written by the band-members, and they managed a decent hit-to-miss ratio considering the odd formula they were working with. A few things don't work very well, like "Singin' the Blues Too Long", which doesn't really fit the psychedelic framework of the album and is, as its title suggests, a boring blues workout that goes on too long. "Rainy Day" is another dud - they push the melodrama a little too far on this psych-soul ballad and end up sounding like a deranged Fifth Dimension ripoff.

Most of the other tracks work pretty well, even if they're all over the map. "Please Love Me" is a soul-tinged garage-rock raver, "Sattva" is a cool sitar-drone ballad, and "I'm Gonna Love You" sounds like a pots-and-pans marching band colliding with a group of Motown second-stringers (in a good way, of course). The Rascals get their psych-soul approach just right a couple times as well, as on the album's big single, "It's Wonderful", even better than that one is "Silly Girl", which marries a airy verse melody to a bouncy bubblegum chorus hook.

"Silly Girl" by the Rascals

It's New to Me: Rumours by Fleetwood Mac (1977)

Cover illustration of Tarzan de los Monos comic book issue #348, 1973

For an album like Rumours, one that everyone in the world has been familiar with for years, it makes sense to keep my "It's New to Me" write-up short, I think. I've collected my most incisive observations on Rumours and will present them in list format:

1. The first thing that struck me about Rumours was that "Second Hand News" is an AMAZING song. If not for the unstoppably perfect "Go Your Own Way", it would be the highlight of the album for me. How was this song not a single? Sooooo catchy.

2. On the other hand, how is it that "Dreams" was the only #1 single from Rumours, while "Go Your Own Way" barely scraped the Top Ten? That makes no sense to me - like a lot of Stevie Nicks' songs, something about "Dreams" just sounds shapeless or amorphous to me.

3. I do like some of Nicks' songs, though. One of my favorites is "I Don't Want to Know", and it's one of hers. I'm not sure if it's true, but I heard somewhere that Nicks was mad that this song was included on the album at all because it resulted in "Silver Springs" getting bumped from the tracklist ("Silver Springs" was too long to fit comfortably on the LP apparently). Personally, I like "I Don't Want to Know" better of the two.

4. Christine McVie's songs are a pretty weak on this album, with the exception of "You Make Loving Fun" (I like that one except for its title). I found this odd because I've thought that her contributions to Tusk were all quite good.

5. The bonus disc that comes with the Rumours reissue is a bit of a waste, as the album's demos are polished to the point of being almost the same as the final versions. The one outtake that makes this second disc worthwhile is Stevie Nicks' "Think About It", which is as good as "Silver Springs" or "I Don't Want to Know" - why wasn't she upset about that one getting left off the album?

"Second Hand News" by Fleetwood Mac

In Stores Now: Kind Empires by the Capstan Shafts

Illustration from the "Over-the-Top" Door Equipment pamphlet of the Frantz Mfg. Company, 1920

I don't usually write about digital-only releases on Wires and Waves because I'm a filthy Luddite, but I thought I should give Kind Empires an exception because it's the follow-up release to one of my top-three albums of 2010, the Capstan Shafts' Revelation Skirts. It's not an official follow-up, though, really - Kind Empires is a quick-and-dirty, choose-your-price mini-album that Capstan Shafts mastermind Dean Wells threw together in advance of the band's September tour. And it feels like one - at least half of the songs on Kind Empires are re-hashed songs from older Capstan Shafts releases, given a somewhat sloppy full-band sound that doesn't always improve on the home-recorded originals. That's the biggest problem with this release - it's been mixed and mastered in a way that sounds muddier and more haphazardly constructed than Wells' early lo-fi albums.

"Come Wilder" is a sped-up version of "Cherry Magdalene" from 2005's The Sleeved and Granddaughters of the Black List album, and "Like Theme from 'Arthouse Floozy'" is a remake of "Proletariat Glow", a favorite of mine that doesn't really benefit from the retro-fitting. The album also includes re-recordings of "The Deli Girls Give Me What I Ask For" and "The Onetime Milwaukee Suicide", songs that date back to 2006 and 2007, respectively.

But, for all my talk of this mini-album's sloppiness and reheated material, there's some really good moments on Kind Empires. Songs like the title track and "Just Bright Enough" sound a little fresher and have that power-pop propulsion that made Revelation Skirts fun, and "Porn Name Equations" successfully updates an old melody (that I can't quite place) with a new-wave-y arrangement in a way that works really well, emphasizing some nice lyrics that were buried in the original version of the song. Hopefully this digital release is not a substitute for a proper album from the Capstan Shafts - maybe we'll see a more "finished" product from the band later this year.

"Porn Name Equations" by the Capstan Shafts

We Love Handclaps: "Vine St." by Harry Nilsson

Illustration from Clara Dillingham Pierson's Among the Farmyard People, 1899

I talked a couple weeks ago about "handclap minimalism", where a song incorporates a few key handclaps into its arrangement to good effect. Harry Nilsson's cover of Randy Newman's "Vine St." may be the ultimate example of this, containing a single handclap in a song that is already structurally weird. Beginning with a snippet of an upbeat pop song, "Vine St." quickly reveals this intro to be a fake-out, as the song turns into a melancholy ballad, reminiscing about the song from the intro. The song's single handclap comes in the second verse of the song proper, where Nilson sings about the "crack of the backbeat", a play on words clarified by the clap, which sounds like a baseball bat hitting a ball.

My question here is whether it's really a handclap at all - it registers as one when I hear it, but I was told a long time ago that most handclaps in pop music were, at one point, made by woodblocks because they had a "snappier" sound. So we have a song within a song, and that song may or may not contain a single handclap. I may be straying a little from my initial thesis at this point. I'll regroup and come back next week with a song that better exemplifies the spirit of handclapping in pop music.

"Vine St." by Harry Nilsson

Jerry Leiber (1933 - 2011)

Cover illustration of Popular Science magazine, June 1930

Jerry Leiber passed away a few days ago at the age of 78. As one half of the writing team of Leiber & Stoller, he co-wrote songs that shaped the sound of modern pop and rock & roll. They were responsible for hits by the Coasters ("Yakety Yak"), the Drifters ("Fools Fall in Love"), the Clovers ("Love Potion No. 9"), http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifElvis Presley ("Hound Dog"), and others(you can see their absurdly long song list here). Their experiences are woven into the tapestry of 20th century music, exemplified by stories like Leiber's trip to Europe with his wife in 1956. They returned to the US on the Andrea Doria and survived its famous collision with another ship. When Leiber finally made his way back to New York, Mike Stoller greeted him at the pier to tell him that a singer named Elvis Presley had taken "Hound Dog" to number one on the pop charts. Leiber's response: "Elvis who?"

In my recent dabbling into the pop and rock of the late '50s and early '60s, I've come across some not-so-famous Leiber & Stoller tunes that have become favorites like the Shangri-Las' "Bulldog" and the Hollies' version of "Poison Ivy". Best of all may be the Leiber & Stoller songs that Elvis did - I've been collecting the works Elvis in a totally wrong order, which means I've been buying his movie soundtracks like Viva Las Vegas and Roustabout. The latter film has the great Leiber & Stoller tune called "Little Egypt", and the former has a duet with Ann-Margret called "You're the Boss". I think that next I need to get that Coasters box set that Rhino Records put out - that's got some of the best Leiber & Stoller songs, and I'm not that familiar with most of them.

"You're the Boss" by Elvis Presley with Ann-Margret

Nick Ashford (1941 - 2011)

Illustration from Clara Mateaux's Woodland Romances, 1877

We lost two great pop songwriters this week, each of them representing half of a unique songwriting team. Jerry Leiber is probably the one I'm more familiar with, but I feel like writing about Nick Ashford today. Hearing of his passing hit me kind of hard, probably because I was listening to the third disc of the Complete Motown Singles 1968 collection at the time, which includes several great songs written by Nick Ashford in his early days writing for Motown with his writing-partner/wife Valerie Simpson.

The Supremes' single "Some Things You Never Get Used To" (by Ashford/Simpson) is on this CD, and it's a monster of a pop song that is under-appreciated only because the Supremes had so many good songs. Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell's duet "You're All I Need To Get By" is also on here and is a favorite of mine. The one I like the best, though, is "I Am Your Man" by Bobby Taylor & the Vancouvers - it's one of the few songs that Ashford & Simpson wrote specifically for a male singer, and they sing the backup vocals on the track as well. Bobby Taylor's singing on the track is quite good, wrangling a challenging melody and making it sound easy. And these three are just the Ashford & Simpson songs that Motown released between May and July 1968. Their long career was full of highlights - I'm not a big fan of "I'm Every Woman", one of their best-known compositions, but I'll acknowledge the genius of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough", "I Can't Give Back the Love I Feel for You", or "Your Precious Love" any time.

"I Am Your Man" by Bobby Taylor & the Vancouvers

It's New to Me: Panorama by the Cars (1980)

Illustration from Little Folk's Every Day Book by Amanda Bartlett Harris, 1881

I've been acquiring these 5-CD sets from the Original Album Series lately, and I have to say that the Cars is a band built exactly for this kind of set. From '78 to '84, they released five albums, after which they rolled out a tidy greatest-hits collection and took time off to pursue other projects. An argument could be made that Greatest Hits is the only Cars album you need (I had it for years and didn't feel the need to explore further), but I'm really enjoying hearing each of the album's all the way through. I really never saw before that the Cars' initial run of albums is seen as an inverted bell curve, with the large majority of their hits being found on their self-titled debut and their fifth album Heartbreak City. Their "difficult" third album, Panorama, is typically referred to as the nadir of this run of albums, but I find that it's the one I listen to the most lately.

Panorama was certainly different. The only Cars album not to feature a sexy lady on the cover, it was also the only one that didn't have a decent hit single - "Touch and Go" barely got into the Top 40. Robert Christgau's reviews of the Cars' albums famously called out their superficiality, but you can hear Panorama trying to do something a little deeper.

The album features relentless Motorik-style rhythms and claustrophobic arrangements that lend the set of songs a sense of jittery paranoia that you don't get from Candy-O or Shake It Up. The sinister edge to the songs makes for a nice contrast for the Cars' impressive harmonies and Ocasek's sneaky pop hooks. The album's opening title track is not exactly inviting as it shows off the album's darker side, but there are plenty of songs on Panorama that shine when you give them a chance. "Touch and Go" has always been my favorite Cars single, and it fits into the album's flow really well - the hard-edged songs on this album are also as successfully menacing as the Cars ever got. The album's closing track, "Up and Down", is probably their best "rock" moment and is my new favorite Cars song - Elliot Easton's guitar leads on this are snarling and creepy until the seamlessly shift into a sunnier jangle for the chorus.

"Up and Down" by the Cars

In Stores Now: Goodbye Bread by Ty Segall

Illustration by Howard Chandler Christy from Tennyson's The Princess, 1911

I got the idea from somewhere that California garage rocker Ty Segall was working with a similar sound as some of the other California bands I've been getting into lately, like the Fresh & Onlys and Thee Oh Sees. When I heard the excellent title track to Segall's new Goodbye Bread album, I felt my suspicions were concerned - the song was a very melodic but rough-around-the-edges piece of laid-back garage rock. It was just what I was looking for, so I bought the album.

As it turns out, "Goodbye Bread" is a little bit of a headfake as a promo track for the album - it's the first song on the record, but then Segall immediately undoes all the goodwill the song earns him by following it with several throwaway tracks of goofy garage rock. "California Commercial" is a brainless stomp partially redeemed by a great solo at the end, and "Comfortable Home (a True Story)" is the kind of thing you might record on a whim to crack yourself up and then immediately press "erase". Starting with the middle section of the album,Segall focuses more on delivering good hooks with his impressive guitar chops, but the second half of the album, while decidedly superior to the first, sometimes drops into the territory of sloppy blues-rock, which is not really my thing.

There's a good half-dozen songs on Goodbye Bread that I like a lot, but I think that the just-goofing-around feel of the album's first half is going to keep me from coming back for a lot of repeated listens to the album as a whole.

"Goodbye Bread" by Ty Segall

Probabilistic Jukebox: "Buttons on Your Coat" by Ezra Furman and the Harpoons

Illustration of a baseball uniform from Peck & Snyder's Encyclopedia and Price List of All Out and Indoor Sports and Games, 1873

I've written about Ezra Furman recently, so I'll keep this brief, but I want to write about this song because it was the first thing that played on the Jukebox when I pressed "play". "Buttons on Your Coat" is a non-album track from Furman's rarities collection Moon Face. It's a fun song because of the strangeness of the loving gestures that the narrator offers to the object of his affections. Sewing buttons on someone's coat because you "always want them to be warm" is a little odd, but it gets weirder when he offers to do things like hide in her attic. And I really think that Furman's distinctive singing style makes him believable in the role of a person capable of this kind of weird obsession.

"Buttons on Your Coat" by Ezra Furman and the Harpoons

Why Does This Exist?: "Pink Moon" by Loop

Photo illustration titled "Sandwich Sensations: Poodle 'Heroes'" from an advertisement for Hellmann's Mayonnaise, 1960

I've become acquainted with '80s drone-rockers Loop through their excellent collection of non-album singles The World in Your Eyes. The UK band was significantly ahead of its time in its singular approach, marrying a single repeated hard-rock riff to simple drumming and distorted vocals to create a brutally psychedelic listening experience. So I was very surprised to hear one of the bonus tracks on the expanded The World in Your Eyes collection, a cover of Nick Drake's "Pink Moon" that wasn't released until after Loop broke up in 1991. A couple things about this cover are odd - first, it wasn't exactly common to be covering Nick Drake in the '80s. To give you an idea of how unknown Drake was at the time, in the months following the Volkswagen commercial that used "Pink Moon", the deceased singer sold more records than he had over the previous thirty years. The second odd thing about this cover is how faithful it is to the original - Loop's Robert Hampson drops all the effects and noise to deliver a very pretty acoustic version of the song with a couple electric embellishments. It's quite lovely but unlike anything else I've heard from the Loop discography.

"Pink Moon" by Loop

It's New to Me: More Songs About Frustration and Self Hate by Boyracer (1994)

Illustration titled "Puss in Boots" by Art Seiden, c. 1955

Was it a foregone conclusion that I would have a "Boyracer phase" at some point? I think so - their discography has all the components I need to creepily obsess over a band. Indie rock? Check! Mining a fairly narrow songwriting formula in seemingly endless variations? Check! A long and messy trail of releases adding up to at least 100+ songs? Check! A narrative covering a lengthy period with plenty of colorful characters and drama? Check! It's like Guided by Voices/Stereolab/Mountain Goats all over again. Boyracer makes a particularly interesting subject of study because of the arc the band followed as frontman Stewart Anderson plowed forward with his vision of scrappy indie-pop - while managing a revolving-door cast of contributors who each shaped the Boyracer sound in little ways, Anderson made a big splash on the UK indie scene during his band's initial run (spanning roughly '91 to '96) before a messy record-label-dropping led to the band's disintigration. Anderson later migrated to Arizona and started a US-based Boyracer in 2001, which ran for approximately the same length of time as the band's first incarnation.

With a long discography of consistent and consistently listenable tunes (to these ears, anyway), Boyracer is ripe for the kind of terrible musical analysis and obsession that I dabble in. And this all started when I found a beat-up copy of the band's first album, 1994's More Songs About Frustration and Self Hate a couple weeks ago. The original LP's sixteen tracks are bolstered by eight more songs beyond the titular "more songs" (drawn from an EP and a couple singles), making for over an hour of Boyracer-formula guitar pop. Here's the basic formula: (1) clattering drums or a fuzzy bass riff start things off, followed immediately by (2) a buzzing fast-strummed guitar part; (3) Anderson's unique vocals appear into the middle of this mess with a sound that could be uncharitably described as a cross between an aggressive mewling and a limp sneer; (4) a couple verses and a chorus or two follow, and then (5) five of six seconds of squealing feedback to finish things off like nice sorbet at a dinner party. After a couple hours trying to tell the songs on the album apart, I didn't follow my instincts and throw the CD in the dustbin - I dug my heels in and listened some more until my obsessive nature kicked in and compelled me to go online and order as many Boyracer releases as I could track down. So it begins...

"Define Beauty" by Boyracer

It's New to Me: Cinema Red and Blue by Cinema Red and Blue (2010)

Photo titled "Two Photographers Taking Each Others' Picture with Hand-held Cameras While Perched on a Roof", c. 1920

I've been studiously ignoring the indie-pop band Comet Gain for a long time - I think it was because I had them confused with K Records band Mocket (who I still think are terrible). But I heard a song from this Cinema Red and Blue record the other day - I could tell from the sound of this Comet Gain side project that I'd misjudged the band. With this project, the UK band collaborated with NY-based Crystal Stilts to make a record of retro-pop produced by the Ladybug Transistor's Gary Olson at his Marlborough Farms HQ. It's clear that the album is intended to be a lark (nothing says "don't take this seriously" quite like loading up the album's second half with obscure covers), but it's not a throwaway. There's enough going on here that I like that I may need to explore the Comet Gain discography a bit.

Cinema Red and Blue's songs are brief and seem to have plenty of indie-pop bounce to them, but the overall feel of the album is fairly laid-back and even moody. Tracks like "Far Out Isn't Far Enough" and "Charlie Clarke" are content to drift along with a wistfulness that overpowers the fervor of the occasional anthem like ""Ballad of a Vision Pure". The covers-heavy second half is a little more lively, with great versions of songs by indie legends like Dead Moon, Vic Godard, and the Chills. The best track of all may be their version of Wreckless Eric's "You're Gonna Screw My Head Off" - Cinema Red and Blue pump up the tempo and energy a bit to make the song's big chorus shine. And I love that pulsing organ in the mix.

"You're Gonna Screw My Head Off" by Cinema Red and Blue

In Stores Now: Let It Beard by Boston Spaceships

Illustration from an advertisement for Northern Mist Aqua Tissues, 1960

Wires and Waves is back from its summer vacation, and the break was well-timed - I needed at least a full week to get my head around Robert Pollard's new album, the phenomenal 76-minute Let It Beard. This is the fifth album from Pollard's Boston Spaceships has released since 2008, and it strays a bit from the band's normal approach of having former GBVer Chris Slusarenko and Decemberist John Moen mine the rich power-pop vein of Pollard's songwriting. As a big fan of that formula, the first four Spaceships albums are among my favorites of Pollard's post-GBV works, and, on paper, Let It Beard should be less fun for someone like me. This time, Pollard challenged Slusarenko with an extra-weird set of song sketches, and Slusarenko turned them into a heavy art-rock marathon that's all over the map style-wise. But I think I'm falling in love with this album anyway.

Let It Beard has a few key things going for it that prevent it from being what could be a long, sludgy slog. First, Pollard's compositions are accessible in spite of being very quirky, with cool lyrical turns and a plethora of unexpected hooks. Elegant ballads like "No Steamboats" and "Let More Light Into the House" bump up against upbeat alternate-universe-hits like "Tabby and Lucy" and the horn-embellished "Christmas Girl". Second, key tracks get an injection of freshness from a variety of guest guitarists - Wire's Colin Newman and the Dream Syndicate's Steve Wynn add old-school post-punk riffs to "You Just Can't Tell" and "I Took on the London Guys", and, most memorably, J Mascis adds a note-perfect solo to the fiery "Tourist UFO" that may be my favorite guitar moment in any Boston Spaceships song.

Balancing the momentum and ebb-and-flow of a 26-song epic is tricky, and the balance of Let It Beard seems a little off for the first couple listens. After about ten listens through, though (wow - that's twelve and a half hours with this album already!), the sequencing makes a lot of sense. The album's wonky side three includes the album's catchiest song, while the album's poppiest side (side two) has as its centerpiece the totally bonkers "A Hair in Every Square Inch of the House". Now, to my ears, this album starts strong and ends strong with no noticeable slow stretches - I've lived in the world of Let It Beard for a while, and I've gotten over the aural jet lag. It's a big and interesting world, too - I'll miss the easy-on-the-ear power pop that Boston Spaceships delivered on their first four albums, but I can see why Pollard decided to retire his Boston Spaceships project here. There's really no coming back from this one.

"Tabby and Lucy" by Boston Spaceships

"The cleanness of the air seems to cleanse our souls by being there"

Postcard titled "Laughton Hot Springs and and Swimming Pool near Reno, Nevada", c. 1933

Wires and Waves is taking a summer break for a week to get some fun and sun. In the meantime, enjoy this non-album single by the 5th Dimension from 1970.

"On the Beach (in the Summertime)" by the 5th Dimension

In Stores Now: Last Summer by Eleanor Friedberger

Illustration titled "Acrobates Representant la Tour Eiffel" from L'Exposition de Paris, 1878

I've been infatuated with the icy stare of Fiery Furnaces vocalist Eleanor Friedberger for a long time - my special lady friend attributes this to Friedberger looking a bit like me in a brunette wig. My heart melted when I saw Last Summer, an album that features a beautifully executed Friedberger stare on its cover - there was no way I was going to pass on such an album. Now, I love the idea of the Fiery Furnaces and have all their albums, but I find that I rarely reach for one of their LPs on a whim. Crammed with convoluted lyrics, musical ideas, and rapid-fire singing, Fiery Furnaces songs are sometimes just TOO MUCH. Last Summer follows the trend of the last Fiery Furnaces record (I'm Going Away, probably my favorite LP of theirs) by toning down the quirks and focusing on classic, pop-song execution. With Friedberger's unique lyrical style and "talk-sing" delivery, the songs are still plenty interesting without going over the top.

The cornucopia of musical ideas that is Friedberger's brother Matthew is occasionally missed, as on the plodding "Glitter Gold Year", but Last Summer has surprisingly few dull moments. The songs are fairly low-key but hold the listener's attention with good melodies and interesting lyrics - however, I do wish there were a couple more upbeat numbers like "I Won't Fall Apart on You Tonight" and "My Mistakes". The latter song is easily the best song on the record, with a clever arrangement and cool chorus hook. Oh, and it has a saxophone solo because... well, because this is an indie-rock record and it's 2011, I guess.

"My Mistakes" by Eleanor Friedberger

I Saw a Movie: Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011)

Illustration from a German government pamphlet for American tourists titled Driving Your Own Car in Germany, 1933

First, let me say that I'm not a fan of the punctuation in the title of this film. There's no real parallelism in a title containing two adjectives and a noun, so offsetting the words with commas doesn't make any sense. And ending a title with a period is just pretentious - period. Having said that, though, Crazy, Stupid, Love. is a better-than-passable ensemble romantic comedy with a solid cast and a very good script. The directing team of Ficarra & Requa come with an interesting pedigree, being best known for their work on Bad Santa and I Love You Philip Morris, and Crazy, Stupid, Love. definitely benefits from some of the edginess (bordering at times on filthiness) and counter-formula instinct of those prior works.

Having said that, though, Crazy, Stupid, Love. definitely comes from the school of large-ensemble rom-coms like Love, Actually and Valentine's Day - these movies typically have a flaccid and over-stuffed feel to them, with every character experiencing some sort of romantic crisis that makes for a scatter-shot narrative. In this film, Dan Fogelman's script bears more than a passing resemblance to Love Actually, but the storytelling is a bit tighter, even if the two main arcs are not always in balance. The primary storyline involves the dissolving marital relationship of Cal Weaver (Steve Carell) and his wife Emily (Julianne Moore), with a second storyline detailing the potential romance between Cal's lothario friend Jacob (Ryan Gosling) and Hannah (Emma Stone), a law student who is resistant to his considerable charms. We're left wondering what's going on with Jacob and Hannah, who are responsible for most of the movie's best moments, for long stretches of the movie in a way that's frustrating. What we're left with instead is Steve Carell doing his sad-sack Dan in Real Life thing, which can get tiresome.

However, the plot-line sloppiness of Crazy, Stupid, Love. is redeemed in large part in the pay-off as Fogelman ratchets up the awkwardness and emotional strain of the characters to some impressive levels of histrionicalness. Fogelman's unbalanced script is deceptively well-structured in retrospect, and there are plenty of little moments and quirks that keep it out of "formula rom-com" territory. The ensemble cast nails most of the important moments, too, with Stone and Gosling being the clear highlights. A less ambitious version of Crazy, Stupid, Love. would probably have been better, streamlining the narrative for improved focus and emotional impact, but I think it's no coincidence that my favorite romantic comedies eschew the simple one-couple formula - good writers and directors just don't want to tell that story.

"Grounds for Divorce" by Wolf Parade