Grown Backwards
- David Byrne
- Band Name: David Byrne
- Record Label: Nonesuch
- Release Date: Mar 16, 2004
- Critic Score
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90The beauty and richness of our seemingly mundane lives can be found here, in the bossa-nova of minor catastrophes, the pseudo-jazz of strippers, and the easy lilt of coffee cups.
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A vital, winning album.
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Byrne's affectless tenor is a perfect match for the delicate bob-and-weave grooves on this CD. [26 Mar 2004, p.74]
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83If it's not his best, it's easier to warm up to than most of his solo releases.
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With the possible exception of his work with Brian Eno, Backwards is his most technically honed album to date. This is the stuff of an artist refreshingly confident with his work.
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80Lean arrangements, never predictable melodic ticks and some of Byrne's most deliciously quirky lyrics ensure an event-packed listen. [Apr 2004, p.99]
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A genuinely moving and wickedly fun record.
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80These are wonderful exercises in songcraft: full of metaphors, twists and punchlines, couched in sprightly string arrangements and sung with rare flamboyance.
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80Young pretenders beware: this old dog isn’t so much learning new tricks as inventing them.
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[A] marvelously sophisticated, extremely political album.
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76It fits alongside the best of his career and adds another solid release to a solo catalog which will hopefully become more cherished in time.
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70The instrumental palette is more wide-ranging in a subtler, more subversive manner. [Apr 2004, p.96]
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70Extends the with-strings concept of last year's Lead Us Not Into Temptation and is equally arresting in its breadth of content and creativity. [Apr 2004, p.107]
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The casually odd music and Byrne's subtle evocations of loneliness work together to suggest that it's great to be your own favorite weirdo, but not paying attention to the rest of the world around you, well, that's really strange.
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70Grown Backwards' restraint risks landing it in a coffeehouse ghetto that only asks for its music to be ignorable, but just because something can be ignored doesn't mean that it should, as the solid handful of excellent moments here proves.
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70A worthy addition to Byrne's sprawling oeuvre, while never reaching the heights of his greatest work. [#242, p.57]
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His voice devoid of Newman-Waits grit, his eclecticism even and controlled where theirs bristles with jokes, oddity, and gusto, how does he expect to connect with anyone but other likable progressives, and rather detached and inscrutable ones at that?
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 8 out of 8
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Mixed: 0 out of 8
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MaxC8
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AshleyM9
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JohnB10Outstanding. A masterpiece.