Unloved Music- Richard Thompson

Now is probably the chance I am looking for to write about Richard Thompson and it’s the #unlovedmusic series Allmusic gives Thompson’s 1996 album You?Me?Us? a dismal 2.5 stars out of 5 I am not sure where I first heard Thompson. I suspect I saw “Shoot Out the Lights” named in Rolling Stone’s Best Albums list and just bought it. I don’t know. I did it at times. I did have a friend who was a fan and I did see his albums at the college radio station so these are also possibilities. The summer of 1993 was the proverbial “best of times and worst of times”. I stayed at my Grandparents and that definitely stands out and was memorable. That summer, I played “Shoot Out the Lights” constantly (in a rotation with The The’s Dusk, 10000 Maniacs’ Our Time in Eden and quite possibly the Use Your Illusion albums). I still think It might be the best album ever. (I Want to See The Bright Lights Tonight is probably somewhere in the conversation too) Thompson feels like the most unlikely pop artist out there. Even while Lou Reed, Elvis Costello and others seemed to find an alt rock niche - Thompson still feels uniquely different. I remember 1991s Rumor and Sigh having a buzz and indeed “1952 Vincent Black Lightning” has gone to become a favorite of Thompson fans, a staple of Del McCoury Band concerts and covered by many. In 1994, Thompson got the Tribute treatment and I really enjoyed it. Beat the Retreat was a solid record with artists from REM to Bonnie Raitt to the Blind Boys of Alabama to Beausoliel. I’m not usually a tribute guy but it’s a great, great record. I pick up my story in 1996. That year Thompson released what feels like a very ambitious double album - one side Electric (Voltage Enhanced) and Acoustic (Nude) Everything from the title to the competing halves feels like a statement. The songs are top notch. The lyrics as good as any he or anyone could compose. But it feels like every album since Rumor and Sigh feels similar insomuch as they get some attention at the time, but upon not conquering the world, time moves to the next one and repeat. In retrospect, Y?M?U? doesn’t get a lot of attention. Yet I stick with my initial assessment. It’s a great album. Allmusic gives it the kind of review that tells people to skip it (Allmusic constantly says Mitchell Froom’s production ruins his records, but I don’t hear it). When I bring the album up to Thompson’s fans, I get a closer opinion to mine. I have followed Thompson’s career quite closely. He hasn’t seem to quite have had that album considered that late career classic with one exception- 2017s Sweet Warrior I don’t even know I loved it at the time. It was definitely ambitious. It felt implicitly and sometimes explicitly an Iraqi War era record. I think it certainly now sounds like an album built to last. I don’t think a real Thompson fan would complain that much about any of his recent work. Thompson might be unpredictable but I never got the impression that he wasn’t in perfect control of what he wanted to do next- soundtrack a Werner Herzog movie, write a concept album about the Industrial Revolution or covering Britney Spears 2018s 13 Rivers made my Year end best of. I mean it’s just Thompson doing what he does. For any other artist, you would probably call it a return to form- but he’s never been that far out of form. To finish the conversation, I should say I have never really delved into Fairport Convention as I probably should (outside the two albums that generally get the most attention - Unhalfbricking and Liege & Lief. Both great) I saw Thompson on the Y?M?U? with a fellow diehard. She said we would be the youngest people there and we were. I am pretty sure I saw the Cramps the same week and if I am misremembering, the story is close enough to the truth to make the point. It’s been so many years but I remember Thompson being great of course and making a comment (which I think I have heard him repeat) that Great Britain didn’t need any help from us to win World War 2. They were doing fine)