Before they got adopted by “The O.C.” I fell hard for Phantom Planet. Their song, “California” from their second album The Guest, had been adopted as the theme song for the TV drama focused on the young and affluent tweens in the conservative wasteland below Los Angeles (which all middle America seemed at the time to think of as Wonderland). With its chorus, “California, Californiaaaaa…Here we come” that built from a spare beginning to where it was less a theme song than an anthem. The perfect song for the age and income set – those middle class kids with white-bread dreams of the Golden Coast.
But I fell in love with Phantom Planet before that. I think I caught the video for “California” on-line. A simple, mostly black-and-white video that showed the guys just kidding around, playing music, being goofy. Simple but endearingly sweet. It looks like a bunch of young guys having a great time. Young guys that admittedly came from Upper Middle Class families. A little spoiled, but having a good time in a completely innocent fashion. But it wasn’t the video that snared me. It was the music. The song was Power Pop. And to me, Power Pop is like heroin. The song begins simply with just an elementary piano riff, that most anyone could pick out on the keyboard. But in great Power Pop fashion, the song swells and retracts, explodes and retreats, erupts and crumbles.
I bought the CD just for that song. Now everyone does this from time to time. That one song, and then you discover that the rest of the CD sucks. (It’s actually only happened a couple of time for me, I’m an excellent judge of music … aw, shucks). That did not happen for me with The Guest.
Because immediately after the opening of “California” came “Always on My Mind,” a superb Elvis Costello knock-off. It was like “Elvis-lite” from the This Year’s Model period.
And after that, what was to be the second hit from the CD, “Lonely Day,” a song with an almost-Jamaican shuffle. You can imagine the steel drum band behind the guitars in the verses before the music kicks in the chorus and turns a little more bar-band based. Cool song. It was less successful as a single than “California” but it didn’t have the strength of "The O.C." It is a better song, by my measure.
The ballad “One Ray of Sunlight” comes next. It’s a sweet song. Alex Greenwald, the lead singer and chief songwriter, croons and wails convincingly. It’s a nice break from the earlier pop madness.
“Anthem.” Here they almost lost me. This song was trying too hard. The first verse was a bit neat; I thought the guys were trying to be ironically cute.
I woke up today, a song was swimming in my head
And I hummed it to myself as I got out of bed.
And on the way to take a shower it all just dawned on me
That a song like this might just go down in history
I quickly ran back to get my guitar, a pen and some paperI liked how the tune was going. And then the chorus came in all earnest. That almost ruined it.
The verses of the song continue in an ironic tone. And they are catchy. And then the chorus comes in again and almost ruins it again. Well, that’s what I thought at the time. I like the song a bit more now, but I had to grow to love it. It’s a bit tattered and garage-sounding. I can dig that.
Then the band pulled me back in with the ragged “In Our Darkest Hour.” A bit more of the Elvis-influence pop, this on the more rock-oriented angry Elvis in the style of “(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea” or … well, … “I’m Not Angry.” It was quick angular music that ended like garbage cans rattling.
This noise is followed by the smooth, sliding “Turn, Smile, Shift, Repeat,” a bit of Radiohead-influenced pop with Alex Greenwald singing in a slightly-monotone voice. The song just plods along for almost 5 and ½ minutes. But in an interesting way. It is quite similar to “Karma Police,” but drained a bit of its threat by the young band.
And then “Hey Now Girl” follows quickly on the heels of the creeper before, with rather techno-like beat, but dissolving rapidly into a straight-ahead rocker, a la Matthew Sweet, Cheap Trick, The Romantics, The Cars, … Elvis Costello. A full chorus with great harmonies, and a bouncy beat. If you were listening, you were probably tapping something.
And then, something very funny. Phantom Planet threw it all out for everyone to see. See what big Elvis-worshippers they were. With its opening couplet of:
Everything is ok
Everything is fine.Which sounded identical to the first song from This Year’s Model’s “No Action”
I don’t want to kiss you
I don’t want to touch“Nobody’s Fault” proved it once and for all. The songs were structured in the exact same fashion. The same angry/hurt tone. The same way that Elvis’ song chugged along like all the wheels were about to fall off. Phantom Planet actually toured with Elvis following the release of The Guest. And I got to see them together here in Houston. Apparently, the big guy was impressed with all the adulation of these young gents and their own chops. They were convincingly producing very good tributes to some of the great music that preceded them. And making it fresh.
The rest of the album is just as good. “All Over Again” is the group at its most alternative, what was closest to the mainstream in rock at the time of this CD’s release. And the song works as a reliable jam. The following song “Wishing Well” is a bit more experimental with industrial sounds and cold emotionless vocal in the verses and an impassioned dramatic chorus. It borders on trite, but it’s enjoyable. You can hear the ELO and Queen influences here mixed in with the Radiohead. The album ends in the acoustic “Something is Wrong,” a whispered voice over a lone guitar. The ballad closes a brilliant listening experience.
(Since I purchased the CD soon after its release, I also got a bonus disc with three songs. “The Guest,” the title (?) song, at which I understood perfectly why it was not included on the CD proper. It was a sneering almost drunken song that did not fit the mood of the other songs at all. A live version of “California,” which I did not particularly care for. It almost illustrated why the song could get tiresome quickly. It missed the quirkiness of the studio version, the chorus sounded forced, a lead guitar blared the riff that formerly was reserved for the piano. The sweetness and gusto was muted. But the bonus disc also included the edgy “Do the Panic,” another of the power pop Elvis Costello or Matthew Sweet inspired gems, later to be a single from their fourth CD, Raise the Dead.)
I listened to this CD constantly for weeks, maybe months. And then The O.C. crushed it for me. I couldn’t get away from “California, Californiaaaaa…Here we come.” I heard it all over the radio; I saw it on the ubiquitous TV ads for "The O.C." One day at lunch, one of my co-workers gushed over the show and the theme song. I think I put the CD away for a while soon after that.
I was living in Los Angeles when the record company released the third CD from the group, the self-titled Phantom Planet. Great expectations. The ads were everywhere. Bus stops, park benches, building facades. But the public had a different reaction. "The O.C." glimmer had faded a bit. The sunny pop had retreated and been replaced by Strokes and Interpol influences kicking the Elvis and Cheap Trick ones to the curb. I’m certain it sold somewhat well at release. I purchased it. But it was much harder-edged than the sophomore album. I did not buy their fourth album, nor did many other people, I believe. I heard nothing of its release, and merely stumbled across it while shopping one day.
The band is now in now “on hiatus,” interpreted by many in the industry as “broke-up.”
The CD rarely comes out off the shelf. I almost never have the CD in my truck to listen to during my work commute or trips homes to see family or for random road trips. But if the computer music system picks a track from the CD randomly, I will often pull up the entire CD and listen to it all the way through. It always holds surprises, at how these “kids” pulled together an entire album of influences and entertained me and themselves all the way through.
