Records: Momus' The Little Red Songbook

By Sam Frank

Either Momus is a genius--a Casanova with a golden poet's tongue, an encyclopedia of perversions and culture, a postmod-ernist in the highest degree--or he's a self-satisfied, insincere manipulator who takes great pleasure in talking about himself, while revealing very little. More likely, Momus is a bit of both. Regardless, it's hard to imagine that anyone functions on his level.

With that disclaimer, let me say that Momus is great at what he does, inaccessible as it may be. His phrase "analogue baroque" provides the best description of The Little Red Songbook: harpsichord renditions of "Ode To Joy" sound simultaneously with Kraftwerk covers and beatbox rhythms. It's very Japanese (Momus is a No. 1 songwriter in Japan)--pop culture overload teetering between insipidness and the hip sampling of artists like Beck. But it coexists with the drama and romance of the High Baroque, or of lounge music at its best.

This dual aesthetic carries over into Momus' lyrics, in which he pays tribute to the creator of Switched On Bach, seduces women, and otherwise celebrates himself. He wins women over with refrigerator poetry, thanks everyone he's "ever slept with," and imagines an impossibly perfect world in "MC Escher": "Karl Marx and Biz Markie would probably agree/ Equality has yet to make much of a mark on the world of the MC."

It's seductive stuff, but it's also rather grating. The 10 karaoke instrumentals included show precisely why: kitsch is kitsch--no matter how smart--and in excess, kitsch is nauseating. Momus' intonation and phrasing work within the instrumentals and make them bearable, even enjoyable. He knows exactly when to stutter, whisper, rap, even when to croon, and the interplay between the backing harpsichords, bleeps, and Momus' own breathiness is amazingly precise and communicative. But he can get tiresome. He constantly sounds like he doesn't care if you are impressed, yet he clearly craves your attention, going so far as to invite listeners to send in parodies of his songs for future release. At times, this desperation grows a little sad, and his pretentious self-satisfaction becomes too much.

Still, Momus rarely outwears his welcome. His songs are pop gems, and they all fit into Songbook perfectly. How can you not love a man who has it in him to say to his ex-lovers, "Thank you from the bottom of my heart/ And from the heart of my bottom/ I know it must be rotten/ To provide the raw material for art." (Le Grand Magistery)

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