Butch Walker: Try To Be a Suckcess

Okay power-poppers and Dylan-watchers, let's let Butch Walker himself describe his bizarre route to fame via this video for one of his good-but-lesser songs.

That first hit of which he signs was "Tainted Angel" by 3rd string hair-metal band, Southgang, the next hit was "Freak of the Week" by radio-friendly power-pop band The Marvelous Three and those other 'ideas' he's referring come from his tenure as a top-ranking producer for hit-makers like Pink, Fallout Boy and Avril Lavigne (all gaining their first mention here at MRML). It's a stranger-than-fiction resume and it doesn't seem to bode all the well for his aughts solo career. Instead, his immaculately-produced power-pop (the kind with a country undertone like Marshal Crenshaw) brings to mind Fountains of Wayne, only Walker is a sharper lyricist who never stoops to merely sneering at the characters that inhabit his songs.

His newest album, I Liked It Better When You Had No Heart puts his best skills on display and even if it sounds on the surface a bit like seventies a.m. radio-fodder, "She Likes Hair Bands" demonstrates superb song-craft, with finely layered production and witty words ("She like hair bands on satellite radio/Well I was in one, so it's a little too close to home").


Butch Walker's hompeage
Butch Walker's MySpace
Butch Walker at iTunes