Jay Brannan
In Living Cover
Release Date: Jun 23, 2009
Genre(s): Rock, Singer-Songwriter
Record label: Nettwerk
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Album Review: In Living Cover by Jay Brannan
Acceptable, Based on 2 Critics
Based on rating 6/10
If Jay Brannan’s second full-length In Living Cover proves anything, it may be that the New York City-based singer-songwriter is currently a better interpreter of other people’s songs than a crafter of his own. Brannan’s a gentle-voiced folkie with a tendency to undercut his pleasant acoustic compositions with irreverent humor and matter-of-fact vulgarity. He follows up his 2008 debut, Goddamned, an awkward attempt to work out a genuine voice behind his mixture of cutesy novelty and mawkish politics, with In Living Cover.
Based on rating 5/10
Jay Brannan dives into his iPod collection with In Living Cover, a collection of cover songs and original material. The two original tunes featured here -- "Beautifully" and "Drowning" -- take their cues from the Lilith Fair school of songwriting, mixing bookish lyrics with bursts of acoustic guitar. The effect is reinforced by Brannan's voice, a somewhat androgynous tenor whose range and tone serve him well on the covers, too.