Destination: HORROR

The singer Matt Nathanson has never made much of an impression on me one way or the other. Some of his songs, like the radio hit "Come On Get Higher" from a couple years ago, are catchy, and he has a decent cover of the James song "Laid," but at best I'd describe his music as low-impact pop rock, the sort of thing you'd hear in the background of a Kate Hudson movie. He's the modern-day equivalent of James Taylor: not without credibility, but not exactly shaking the world, either. Take a look at him -- doesn't he look like he belongs in the same crowd as Gavin DeGraw and Howie Day?

At least, that's how he used to look, before the release of his most recent album, Modern Love. I can't speak of the quality of the music on the album because I haven't heard it, but I can speak of the album's cover art, in which Nathanson announces to the world that he's apparently decided to become the world's least-convincing Springsteen impersonator:

Wispy facial hair? Check. Greasy sideburns? Double check. General appearance of a New Jersey street rat? Check check check. I'm all for people dressing how they want to dress, but I'm also wary of artists in any genre of music whose appearances undergo an about-face (so to speak) from one album to the next. Growing a beard is one thing, but most people don't completely alter their dress sense from one year to the next after the age of eighteen -- unless they have something to sell.

To fully appreciate what Nathanson has done to himself, take a look at the video for his single "Faster." The video is generally horrible, but the real issue is Nathanson himself, who spends the duration of the clip shimmying and making cutesy faces at the camera like a girl in a Clearisil ad. Men who try to look sexy, whether it's sexy in a musclely sort of way or sexy in a slouchy, just-rolled-out-of-bed sort of way, invariably end up looking like fools, especially when they're shoving their mustaches into a camera lens. And that's not even adressing the real elephant in the room, shiny and gold and affixed to Nathanson's left nostril. Is it...? Yes. It is. It's a nose ring. Like he's Lenny Kravitz.



Destination: HORROR.  

(Springsteen pic via here)