God's Favorite Customer

God’s Favorite Customer is the next chapter to Honeybear: the story of the hedonistic shroom-addled Hollywood waster who fell in love and started to grow up, even if the occasional pelvic thrust, sardonically raised eyebrow or over-dramatic fall to the floor wouldn’t go amiss.

God’s Favourite Customer leaves the over-wrought and possibly over-thought days of Pure Comedy in its slipstream in return for something just that bit purer. True, the fun days of I Love You, Honeybear et al may be gone, but what a sacrifice if this is what we get in return.

Atonement is the name of the game on this record, and when paired with Tillman’s gorgeous baritone and humble melodies, the self-reflective end result is often heartening. Not every track here captures this doleful magic (“The Songwriter” and closer “We’re Only People” occasionally get lost in their own sorrow), but it’s commendable all the same.

It’s another marvellous addition to the Father John Misty catalogue, delivered from a songwriter that surely now deserves to be recognised as one of, if not the greatest, of this decade.

https://www.allmusic.com/album/gods-favorite-customer-mw0003172246

It’s a record riddled with questions, while refusing to offer answers. In remaining tight-lipped, this taciturn new aspect to Father John Misty might be his most genuinely sincere, and his most profound.

What lifts God's Favorite Customer beyond homage is Tillman's slicing, free-associative candor as he examines the cost in sanity and constancy of his craft and touring life.

Calling God's Favorite Customer Father John Misty's "break-up album" is probably not off the mark, but it shouldn't discourage anyone who was swept up in the epic grandeur of Pure Comedy. This is the same Josh Tillman you've known all these years, albeit one who's shifting gears while retaining both his characteristic wit and his unique way with a melody.

Father John Misty the character shouldn't distract from Father John Misty the songwriter. The obvious truth is they go together. God's Favorite Customer is a 10-track demonstration that when bleakness and fun can be married this well, wanting it any other way is churlish.

Tillman’s gift for melody and his penchant for droll, evocative lyrics pull these 10 songs back from the brink of morbidity.

It’s smart and knowing, flitting between perspectives with ease. Barely a year after his last, Josh Tillman makes this shit look easy.

Present within these songs are grace and generosity--two words I could not imagine summoning to describe Father John Misty’s music a year ago.

There’s little to adorn most of these songs—lyrically economical, sonically without much pageantry--but the intimacy and honesty results in some of Tillman’s most stunning songwriting.

Tillman’s voice--which rarely gets mentioned in considerations of his success--is as wonderful as ever, clear and true, and warm and approachable, even if close examination reveals the deep damage beneath the veneer.

With material this timeless, it’s no wonder Tillman has wide enough appeal to co-headline the Hollywood Bowl: Classic-rock oldsters and the Pitchfork generation can both hold him up as a gold standard. An album this good is its own happy ending.

When Tillman is good, he is very very good: a master of classic melody, even if the source is meta, and something like a true poet when he wants to be.

God’s Favourite Customer isn’t quite perfect - it lags in the final furlong as piano ballads are fallen back upon one too many times (the title track, ‘The Songwriter’) and lacks the unified overarching narrative of ...Honeybear--but it continues to showcase one of the finest songwriters of a generation.

Unlike I Love You, Honeybear and Pure Comedy, which were rooted in performativity, God’s Favorite Customer is sincere, raw and melancholy.

God's Favorite Customer showcases Tillman at his most levelled: sly-tongued and biting, emotional and soulful, articulating life's most complex feelings in a way we can all understand.

There's enough variety mixed in to keep the instrumentals fresh, with luxurious string passages, warm organ swells, overdriven guitar riffs, some harmonica and even a fuzzed-out synth tone.

When it's glorious, it really is glorious. [Jul 2018, p.18]

For an artist who is often too much, however, it is just enough. [Jul 2018, p.89]

This is a heady journey through excess, absurdity and 21st century mores from arguably the world's most eloquent singer-songwriter, which seems to take us that bit closer to who he really is. [Jul 2018, p.117]