When then-14-year-old Ben Lee began his musical career as many years ago, critics said the indie-pop singer was just as precocious and pretentious as he was prodigious.
The Australian teenager's early music sounded just as tumultuous as what was going on behind the scenes: his plunge headfirst into the New York music scene, the breakup of his first band, and, later, his high-profile romance and breakup with actress Claire Danes.
It says something about his prior temperament that Lee's first real success beyond his homeland came after he lightened things up a bit. After the nasty breakup, Lee founded his own record label, recorded a fantastic new album (2005's "Awake Is The New Sleep") and came the closest he ever has to a bona-fide U.S. hit with "Catch My Disease."
Now, at almost 30 years old, Lee shows off some more of the same unbridled glee on his latest release, "Ripe." There's not a single ballad or minor-key song on the album, making for a musical journey that sounds sugary-sweet even when the lyrics tread into darker territory.
There's nothing quite as catchy here as "Catch My Disease," and the list of collaborators — Mandy Moore, Benji Madden of Good Charlotte, members of Rooney — hardly helps. Songs like "What Would Jay-Z Do?" and "American Television" are self-consciously awkward, relying on Lee's goofy charm to prevent them from being total disasters.
Somehow, though, he pulls it off in the end. "Love Me Like The World Is Ending" is a pleasant lead single that should endear him to the Starbucks crowd without straying too far into soft rock. "Sex Without Love" has a shout-along chorus that evokes "Livin' On A Prayer." Even the Mandy Moore collaboration "Birds and Bees" is a winner, a quaintly suggestive duet that shows off both singers' ample charisma (not their vocal range, though; both sound a little like robots due to the auto-tuned vocals that infect most of "Ripe," like most pop releases these days).
Few singer-songwriters are as earnest and talented as Ben Lee. "Ripe" is a fine, fun record, and with a little less sameness and silliness, his next record should be even better.
Reach the reporter at: sam.gavin@asu.edu.
