Promenade - The Divine Comedy (1994)

There’s this thread in my mind of UK / Irish chamber pop sorts of guys whose main goal is to make you see how smart and refined they are, as if the problem with Sgt. Pepper is that it just wasn’t brainy enough. That’s not necessarily a bad thing–I’d rather listen to smart music than intentionally dumb music–but it’s easy for me to react to cynically. The early track “The Booklovers” here is mostly just 6 minutes of saying the names of famous authors. That’s the sort of thing I’m talking about.

But if this were just an infuriatingly nerdy set of chamber-brit-pop songs, I might not have lasted all the way through. The fact is that it’s also catchy and well-built, with some occasional greatness. There’s plenty to like here, from the smart string arrangements to the clever turns of phrase. It just straddles the line between literate and pretentious, in a way that I’m pickier about than most.

Let me bottom-line this for you, and admit my own blind spots: I didn’t love this album; In part because I just didn’t find it super engaging; but in part because I picture in my head the sort of person who loves this album, and they bug me because they could easily be me going on about Bob Dylan or John Coltrane. That’s a lousy reason not to like something, but my introspection has limits.