Description
It is 35 years, give or take, since The Jayhawks formed in Minneapolis. All these years later they are still going strong and have just released Album No. 11 XOXO which may well rank among their best. The Jayhawks just about deserve to be thought of as a genre unto themselves: a sweet and glorious synthesis of all the Americana music of their time, and from some time before that. XOXO is, astonishingly and hearteningly, the sound of a group still finding new ways to be themselves.
XOXO is the result of a recalibration of The Jayhawks’ internal dynamics: Gary Louris, The Jayhawks’ primary singer and songwriter, decided to open the floor to his colleagues. Though all have contributed to the writing before now, no previous Jayhawks album has been quite such a team effort in this respect. Only two tracks are credited solely to Louris. On six tracks, he isn’t credited at all. Lead vocal duties are shared. The Jayhawks have massively frontloaded the irresistible tuneful bangers. O’Reagan’s “Dogtown Days” is a gleeful powerpop stomper, swaggering like Big Star and as hook-happy as Cheap Trick. Louris’s “Living In A Bubble”, following that, does have a point that it wishes to make – it’s a rumination on the information overload that is the default condition of 21st-century humanity – but it’s wedded to a jaunty honky-tonk piano backing that recalls one of Randy Newman’s sardonic country tunes…elsewhere there are even nods to Nicks/Buckingham era FLEETWOOD MAC…
